where jess ate

Located in the heart of Chinatown, the Dumpling House was packed around eight on a Tuesday evening.  This translated into a ten minute wait for a table of two. While Chris and I waited, we watched the employees making dumplings fresh to order up front. If you’re walking down Spadina, you can watch them making dumplings from the window… definitely fresh!

I was expecting this place to be a complete hole-in-the-wall, so I wondered if it was renovated in recent years since it was a little cleaner than what I had expected.  Each table has a set of condiments including soy sauce, vinegar and hot sauce. We mixed all three together to make the perfect dipping sauce for our dumplings.

Chris and I decided to order a plate of steamed and fried dumplings. They have a wide variety of dumpling fillings and for the steamed ones, you have the option of choosing three types for $6.99 (for 15 dumplings). However, we just chose one type – the Steamed Shrimp & Pork Dumplings ($6.99 for 15). Unfortunately, I believe the dumplings were boiled and not steamed. They were served quite wet on the plate which made them quite tough to grab with our chopsticks. They were quite dense and I found the skin to be on the thick side. As for the filling, I didn’t find them to be anything special.

For our pan fried option, we went with the Pan Fried Pork & Chive Dumplings ($5.99 for 12). Similar to the steamed dumplings, you have the option of choosing 3 types for $6.99 (for 12).

The dumplings were served connected together with a fried lattice net on top of them. I was afraid they’ve be really greasy, but surprisingly they weren’t at all. I loved the crispiness of the net and the filling was delicious and juicy. We both really loved these. Maybe we should have ordered the steamed dumplings with this filling inside instead.

We decided to supplement our dumplings with some Jellyfish – with cucumber and a mild spicy vinegar sauce ($5.99). Honestly, I don’t know what we were thinking… this was just a bad idea from the get-go. When it arrived, we knew we had made a big mistake. This brown pile tasted as unappetizing as it looked. I like the crunchy texture of jellyfish, but this one was way too mushy and incredibly sour from the vinegar. It was as if this had been sitting in the marinade for days. Not good at all!

Chris suggested ordering some carbs. We were originally going to order some noodles in soup but when we saw someone eating these stir-fried noodles, we looked at each other and knew we wanted those instead. We ordered what was called the House Special Noodles – stir-fried noodles with chicken, beef, shrimp in brown sauce ($6.99). I don’t know what “brown sauce” means, but it tasted similar to shanghai fried noodles…just not as good. The noodles contained a ton of minced garlic, which normally isn’t a bad thing since I love all things garlic, however the amount of garlic was a little excessive as I could taste it in my mouth all through the night.

As for the service, it was quick and the servers weren’t very personable, which was to be expected. As for the food, I think I’ve learned my lesson. If a restaurant has “dumpling” in its name, just stick to the dumplings. Actually, I didn’t even think the “steamed” (aka boiled) shrimp and pork dumplings were all that great. Not bad, but the star of this place is definitely their pan fried dumplings.

At a glance:

Get the pan fried dumplings; everything else wasn’t very good

Located near Dundas and Spadina

Reasonably priced

Ratings (out of 5):

Food: 2.5 stars

Service: 2 stars

Atmosphere: 2 stars