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Cheap Eats
DUMPLINGS
The right
stuffing from all over.
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| Momo
better: Tibetan momo dumplings, soup, and hot garlic sauce
at Shangrila. |
The best dumpling deal in town
just got better: Now that Fried Dumpling has opened a second
branch in Chinatown on Mosco Street, there are two places
-- not counting the inferior clones -- to buy five flavorful crescent-shaped
minced-pork-and-leek dumplings for a dollar.
Vegetable dumplings, too often a bland cabbage-and-mushroom-stuffed
afterthought, are reinvented at Dim
Sum gogo, where they come in ten different versions, with
threekinds of dough wrappers and four kinds of sauce. No. 4, the
snow-pea-leaf dumpling, reminded us a bit of spinach ravioli ($2.25
for three).
Mandoo are Korean dumplings, the chief attraction at 32nd Street's
Mandoo Bar, where they're hand-formed in the window by a
pair of nimble-fingered women who stop traffic with their engaging
labors. We're partial to the steamed kimchi mandoo, in which the
typical pork-and-vegetable stuffing is fortified with tofu and a
smidgen of the cuisine-defining pickled cabbage ($7.99 for ten).
Once you've tried mandoo, it's time to tackle momo, the oversize
Tibetan take on Chinese potstickers. At Tibetan Yak in Jackson
Heights, they're steamed or fried; stuffed with your choice of vegetables,
chicken, or beef; and served with a sesame-dressed cabbage salad
($6.75 to $7.25 for eight). The momo at Shangrila
remind us of Japanese gyoza, but maybe that's because the Tibetan-born
chef-co-owner used to cook at Honmura An. (Hence the presence of
tempura and edamame alongside gutse ritu, hand-rolled Tibetan pasta
stewed in lamb broth and garnished with cottage cheese.) We find
ourselves craving the semomo, and keep rotating between the sesame-flavored
chasha chicken and the "Shangrila special," stuffed with spinach
and homemade curd cheese ($8.50 steamed, $9.50 fried).
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