Week 40 - A Recipe You've Been Wanting to Try

I did a lot of virtual cooking classes during the pandemic before things started opening up again after vaccines, and even though I attended multiple classes on dumplings, potstickers, and wontons, I was never able to make them. Why? Because every single wrapper I could find either had egg or was made on the same equipment as egg, and it wasn't worth the risk with B's allergy. I knew that there was one wrapper that was completely vegan, made by Nasoya, but it wasn't until this fall that we were finally able to get it. I had a hard time initially trying to figure out what to make for the Week 40 challenge - a recipe you've been wanting to try - because there are so many, but this seemed to fit, since I've been waiting to make wontons/dumplings for so long.

I decided to make pork wontons, but the only instructions I could find at the time from the classes were for shrimp wontons, so I loosely followed a recipe from Bon Appetit instead, with the intention of trying to fold them the same way they did in the class. As is probably obvious, I was terrible at folding the wontons. I tried all different shapes, but most of them came out looking horrible. The folded-over triangle was probably the best one, and the wontons just looked so empty, but that was the most I could stuff them without them breaking. I wasn't great at making them the last time I tried either. This is why I pay for them at restaurants, although I'll keep trying again here and there.

I made some green beans with onions in the air fryer alongside the wontons, based on a recipe from Allrecipes. They were pretty good, although they looked more like Chinese dry-fried green beans than they tasted. We haven't experimented much with making vegetables in the air fryer yet, but since these turned out well, maybe we'll do it more.

Overall, the dumplings were fine, but not great. The sesame sauce from the Bon Appetit recipe was delicious though, and it was good on both the dumplings and the green beans. It'll probably be some time before I attempt dumplings again, but hopefully next time will be better.

Chicken Shu Mai

A quick review for the chicken shu mai at Trader Joe's ($2.99 for 18 dumplings and one soy sauce packet):

We love dumplings, so we were interested in trying these shu mai. The filling ingredients were listed as chicken, onions, carrots, green onions, sesame oil, salt, garlic, ginger, and white pepper, so we thought they would be pretty flavorful, but they were kind of bland. The dipping sauce consisted of soy sauce, sugar, and rice vinegar, so your basic dumpling dipping sauce, and the shu mai absolutely needed it. They gave two heating instructions on the box: pan-frying (which is clearly what they did for the box photo) and steaming in the microwave. Since this was a snack for us, we chose microwave for faster heating (even though it took longer than the box instructions) and easier clean-up, but pan-frying probably would have tasted better. That said, we're still really not sure how much better they would have tasted after pan-frying considering how lacking in flavor the dumpling innards were.

Buy again? Unlikely. There are much better dumplings at TJ's and elsewhere.

Week 29 - Dim Sum

I put off the dim sum challenge for a long time. The challenge week was in July, and I didn't make anything for it until September. I'm behind in challenges generally, but I just lacked motivation for this one. I think a big part of that was because dim sum has always seemed like a lot of work for something that is consumed very, very quickly. For example, A's mom made dumplings completely from scratch one night for dinner when we visited, and the 130+ dumplings she made were consumed in maybe half an hour. Another part of it was probably because we've had a lot of dim sum over the years, and I knew whatever I made wouldn't live up to it. Yet another part of it was probably because I wasn't going to make a multitude of dishes, but only one, and that really wouldn't replicate the dim sum experience. It just seemed easier to go out for dim sum than to do this challenge.

But part of this challenge is forcing me to go outside of my comfort zone, and sometimes to do things that I don't actually want to do. So I eventually forced myself to pick up some dumpling wrappers and try to make the dumplings that I used to love when my grandmother would make them for family get-togethers. It had been a while since we had them, but we sort of remembered what went into them and got some tips from her and my mom. The ingredients we used were:

- 1 lb ground turkey

- 1 cup dried shiitake mushrooms (probably should have used more)

- 1 can of water chestnuts (probably should have used more)

- 1/2 cup of scallions, greens only (probably should have used more)

- about 1.5 tbsp of soy sauce (definitely should have used more)

- about a capful of shao shing wine

- 1 pack of thin dumpling wrappers

- 1 egg, beaten

- chicken bouillon + water, enough to cook the dumplings in

As you can tell, we didn't really measure anything, and we weren't working off a recipe so all the amounts are estimates. The one thing we both agreed on soon after trying them was that we definitely should have used some more soy sauce. Next time.

The steps for making the dumplings were:

1. Combine ground turkey in mixing bowl with soy sauce and wine, and let sit while prepping vegetables.

2. Rehydrate shiitake mushrooms, reserving the soaking water, and then cut off stems. Put mushrooms, water chestnuts, and scallions in a food processor until chopped well. Add to turkey mixture and mix well. Allow to sit for a few minutes.

3. Combine the water from the shiitake mushrooms with chicken broth (chicken bouillon and water in our case). Bring to boil.

4. Make dumplings. Put a small amount of filling in each dumpling wrapper and seal with egg. [I should have put in more filling. I always overfill everything, like tacos, lettuce wrap, etc, so I think I overcompensated here and didn't put enough. Next time.]

5. Boil dumplings in batches of 10-12 for about 10 minutes until meat is cooked.

Since I didn't put enough filling in each dumpling since I was afraid they would burst, there was a lot of turkey left over at the end. I ended up making about seven giant meatballs (with the turkey mixture, some of the beaten egg, and some more soy sauce) which, after pan-frying for a bit, we then added to the soup that would accompany the dumplings. The soup was my grandmother's idea. She said the dumplings would be even better made with chicken broth instead of water, and that you could then just add vegetables and drink it. Perfect idea. We added in some chopped mushrooms (regular mushrooms, not shiitake) and the rest of the scallions, along with the meatballs, and it was a really clean soup.

In the end, the dumplings were good but not great. There were hints of the flavors I really like from our family's dumplings, but there was something missing. I don't think it was just more soy sauce though. Maybe it was more mushrooms, maybe more water chestnuts, maybe all of the above. Maybe it was some other ingredient that I was missing. I also need to put more meat in each dumpling next time, because there was way too little filling in these. We did enjoy eating them for dinner though, and they were also good out of the refrigerator the next day (cold actually has always been my favorite way to eat them). May take some more experimentation and practice to get this right, but I'm certainly not opposed to it!

Flushing Food Crawl

Considering how many food options there are in Flushing, we don't get out there nearly as often as we should. It's only a (relatively) short trip on the 7 train, yet almost all of it has been unexplored by us. For that reason, for one of our dining resolutions for 2017, we decided we should go on a dumpling crawl in Flushing. Last weekend, we did just that (and can finally check off our first fully completed resolution!).

Our first stop was Tianjin Dumpling House at the Golden Shopping Mall in the basement food court. Out of all of our stops on the food crawl, this was the one we had actually been to before, grabbing some dumplings before a wedding a few years ago in case it was like a typical Chinese wedding and the food wouldn't be served for hours. Their specialty is the lamb and green squash dumplings, although the lamb/carrot and pork/chive ones we got the last time (because they were out of the squash ones) were good too. (Just as a side note, probably best to not think of this as your typical "mall" or mall food court; it's a bunch of stalls in a cramped basement that have been there forever just serving good food.)

Each order of dumplings at Tianjin has 12 dumplings, and they range in price from $4 to $7. Really inexpensive. The lamb and green squash ones were $6, which was a great price for 12 dumplings. They were cooked to order so they did take a little bit of time to get, but they were totally worth it. One of our favorite things about the dumplings was the nice chewy wrapper which had sort of an al dente texture to it. We assume that the wrappers are handmade because you can't get that type of elasticity from a machine-made wrapper, and also because the dumplings are all different sizes.

The dumplings themselves had a mild lamb flavor but not an overpowering gaminess. The green squash added an interesting texture. We didn't get much flavor from the squash, but it added something of a "wetness" to the dumplings that helped ensure that they didn't get too dry. For dipping sauces, this no-frills place doesn't have any pre-prepared sauces available. Instead, they have bottles of soy sauce and vinegar and containers of chili sauce and a green-ish garlic sauce. We have no clue what made it green, but it was delicious and had a really nice sharp, garlicky flavor. This was our first stop of the day, but after discussing, we both agreed that it was the best.

Next up was probably the one we had been most excited about - White Bear. We had wanted to go to White Bear for ages, and every time we saw pictures of the wontons in chili oil, we wondered why we hadn't made it yet. These were also $6 for 12, and they came topped with scallions and some pickled vegetables along with the chili oil. (It's #6 on the menu if it's not obvious.) They were also supposed to have good dan dan noodles there, but we didn't want to overdo it and end our food crawl after two stops, so we didn't get those.

We liked the flavor of these dumplings, but we thought that they would be better. The way some people talk about White Bear, we expected this to be something like a life-changing dumpling experience, and it wasn't. It sounds like maybe our expectations were just too high, but while they were high, there was also the fact that we thought our first set of dumplings from Tianjin were better. The wrappers here were handmade and thinner, like a lot of wonton skins are, but that made them less chewy and in some cases, easier for them to fall off the filling. A couple of our wontons were either broken or broke as we tried to pick them up. Flavor-wise, we noticed that despite the chili oil, they weren't really very spicy at all. We've had wontons or dumplings like this before that were much spicier and thought those had more flavor. These were also on the salty side. The pickled vegetables here added some nice freshness and differentiated it from other dumplings we had in the past, but they also contributed to the saltiness.

We intended for our next stop to be more dumplings, but as we wandered around, we found ourselves in the food court at the New World Mall (this one, a more typical mall and mall food court). We walked around looking at all the stalls and all the many food options until we stopped in our tracks at Cheers Cut. When we were back in Vancouver, we had tried Taiwanese large fried chicken for the first time (post coming eventually in our trip recaps) and it was incredible. We had heard rumors that places in NYC were starting to make this, but didn't really know where to go yet. When we saw that Cheers Cut had large fried chicken, we had to stop the dumpling crawl and get some chicken.

Cheers Cut (apparently with two locations in NYC, as well as one each in Tampa and Philadelphia) had two sizes of large fried chicken - large (samurai) and extra large (ninja). We, of course, went with the ninja ($7.95) so we could try more, and in the choice between pepper and chili topping, went with pepper since it was closer to what we got in Vancouver. In style, it was very similar to what we got in Vancouver (and presumably what they serve in Taiwan, but A never had this there, and M hasn't been to Taiwan) - a chicken breast and thigh flattened into one large piece of chicken, breaded, and deep fried. The dark meat retained some of the bones, even in this flattened form, but there was a mix of white and dark meat in every piece.

While this chicken was good, we preferred the one we got in Vancouver. The breading on that one attached more to the chicken and didn't really get soggy and flake off at all like this one did in parts, there was a little more flavor in the topping, the breading, and the chicken itself in the Canadian one, and the chicken was a little juicier there. That said, until we hear about the location of another Taiwanese large fried chicken joint in NYC, we don't have anything to compare it to in this city, so guess it's the best one for now. Maybe someday there will be other places here to compare, but right now it's much cheaper going to Queens than flying back to Canada.

Our next stop we figured would be one of our last, since it was a full-service restaurant instead of a quick service place - Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao. We were going, obviously, for XLB, but we also heard that they made good scallion pancakes. Since we'd pretty much been eating heavy food without vegetables all day, we also figured we should balance that out with a plate of cucumber and garlic ($4.50). That was nice and refreshing with good garlic flavor, although a couple of pieces of cucumber were a little on the bitter, softer side. It felt really good to eat all those cucumbers though, since we were incredibly dehydrated.

The scallion pancakes ($3.50) came first, since soup dumplings take a little bit of time to make. These were crispier and flakier than the scallion pancakes we're used to getting. Despite the crispy exterior, though, the insides were still soft and chewy just the way we like them. While these were quite good, the ones A's mom makes are better.

The last thing to arrive was the steamer of six pork soup dumplings ($5.95). These were quite delicious. The soup inside was rich and flavorful without being too scalding. The filling was also flavorful and soaked up a lot of the flavor from the soup. The really nice thing was that the wrappers were thinner than most versions you get in NYC. That was always our gripe with the offerings in NYC. While in overall rankings we'd rank higher the ones we got at Din Tai Fung in Asia and others we got in Vancouver, these are probably our favorite of the ones we've tried in NYC. We haven't tried everywhere in NYC though, so we're open to further comparisons, but so far, these are the best we've had here.

After all of that savory food, it was time to end the day with some dessert. We headed back to New World Mall to the food court, as we had been hearing a lot recently about some stall there named Erqal that served Uyghur ice cream. When we went on our walk through the food court earlier, we had seen it and mentally bookmarked it for dessert. With tax, a regular ice cream was only about $3, which was pretty good for such a large cup.

The first thing we noticed about the ice cream was how it was made. There was a giant whirring motor spinning a frozen metal bowl holding the ice cream base. In the bowl was also a large wooden paddle that provided the aeration required to make the ice cream. When it's fully frozen the wooden paddle is then used to scoop out the ice cream into another container so that it resembles a large clump. The ice cream definitely had a different texture from most of the ice cream we usually eat. It had hints of brown sugar and caramel in the flavor, and texturally it wasn't as creamy as any other ice cream we had ever eaten. It was more icy and watery for lack of a better term, and it lent itself to being eaten very quickly. It was an interesting experience, and we really enjoyed the ice cream.

We had a pretty productive day exploring Flushing, trying different foods from all over China, checking off our resolution to go on a dumpling crawl, and even seeing bits of history from the colonial era on our walk, like the Kingsland Homestead. We should definitely explore more neighborhoods in the city more often.

9th Ave Food Festival 2017 Part I

Last weekend was the annual 9th Avenue International Food Festival in Hell's Kitchen. We've missed it the past couple of years because of scheduling issues, but made it on both days this year. The first day of the festival was on the cooler side (low 60s following days of summery weather) and a little bit cloudy so even though it was plenty crowded, it wasn't as packed as it could have been which was more pleasant for walking. We walked the entire length of the fair both ways, but most of the food we got on the first day came from the southern part of the festival. After we got to the end and took a short detour to pick some stuff up at Whole Foods, we realized that we weren't really that hungry anymore and that it would be best to leave the other stuff that caught our eye for the next day.

Part of the reason we were probably so full was because our first stop was Daisy May's for BBQ. We've had Daisy May's BBQ several times before (and even went for the World Cup challenge in 2014), so the pulled chicken and mac and cheese weren't anything new but they were quite tasty. We had debated between the pulled chicken and the pulled pork, and in the end chose the chicken. It was drier than the pulled pork usually is, but it wasn't that bad. The sauce, as always with Daisy May's, was very good. It had an excellent balance of sweetness and tanginess to pair with the chicken. The mac and cheese was rich and creamy, and the parts with the crusty, cheese-infused breadcrumb topping were the best. Unfortunately they didn't give us much of it, but we enjoyed what they did give us.

Our next stop as we made our way up the avenue was the Spam house (aka the "Spam Tiny House of Sizzle") which was offering free samples. There was no way we were skipping free stuff, so we got on line not knowing or caring what the samples were. By the time we got to the front, there were three options - Spam fries (which we thought might have been fries topped with Spam but were just griddled Spam cut up into fries), Spam sliders, and Spam musubi. We got one of each of the latter two and split them.

The Spam slider had a thin slice of Spam on a King's Hawaiian roll with some wasabi mayo. The Spam itself was most likely griddled, and it produced a nice caramalization on the meat. Paired with the sweetness of the King's Hawaiian roll and the spicy creaminess of the wasabi mayo, it was our favorite of the two options. The Spam musubi was exactly what we expected it to be. A took the first bite, and he had a little trouble biting through the seaweed wrapper. He thought there wasn't a ton of Spam flavor to this despite the rather large slice of Spam. Also, a lot of the rice seemed undercooked to A, but M didn't seem to have that same issue as it seemed fine to her. She also tasted more Spam flavor but that could be because she ate some of the rice on its own first before eating the entire Spam-rice-seaweed combination together.

Next up we stopped at A-Pou's Taste, a street cart we've visited before on the Upper West Side but hadn't seen in a while. They specialize in Taiwanese-style potstickers, and we had always found them tasty in the past. This time we got an order of five pork potstickers which were covered in hot sauce and soy sauce. We really liked these potstickers, and they were just as good as we remembered them being before. This wasn't too surprising as they basically brought their regular cart out to the event.

By far, the busiest block of the entire festival was the one taken up by the Big Bite Tour. A bunch of promotional tents giving out samples, and obviously there was going to be a crowd. Free stuff! There were samples of Mentos gum, Nestea iced tea, Blue Diamond almonds, Wholey Cheese crackers (which we were so excited to see as we had recently tried them for the first time, but that's for another post), Allegra (also extremely exciting and money-saving for us), and Turkey Hill ice cream, which ended up being the last thing we ate from the festival.

Without planning it, we got two different flavors of ice cream - vanilla bean and salted caramel. The vanilla ice cream was good. You could see the vanilla beans mixed into the ice cream itself, and that always makes a huge difference when comparing vanilla ice creams. A thought the salted caramel was just okay. It seemed more caramel and less salted, but in the end the overwhelming flavor in his mind was just sweet. M's not a huge fan of salted caramel, so she didn't feel like trying it, especially if A wasn't raving about how good it was.

We enjoyed our time at the festival other than having to dodge oblivious and/or inconsiderate people in the crowds. The one thing we did notice on the walk though was the absence of one of the vendors we had always looked forward to - Millie's Pierogi. No idea when they stopped coming since we've missed the festival for a couple of years, but we always stopped by their stand. Guess we'll have to look for them in Massachusetts to get our fix.

Sriracha Potstickers Revisited

A while back, we tried some Trader Joe's sriracha seafood potstickers in festive Christmas colors and really liked them. They had a nicely balanced, slightly spicy seafood flavor to them. We found these again on a recent visit to Trader Joe's (still $3.99 for 12 potstickers), but this time instead of red and green wrappers, the wrappers were an orange color made with carrot and red peppers. (The insides were pretty much the same as last time.)

This time, instead of boiling them, we decided to pan fry them since they were potstickers. The ones in the photo on the box looked like they fried pretty well, but we followed the instructions exactly and they didn't turn out remotely like that. They completely stuck to the pan and fell apart when we tried to take them out, so we won't be making them that way again. A was sad because it was his idea to try them this way.

We still like these potstickers. They're not really a meal replacement for the discontinued crispy green curry shrimp gyoza (SO SAD they're gone), but they're tasty.

Himalayan Yak

Writing our post about Dhaulagiri Kitchen recently reminded us about another Himalayan restaurant we visited a couple of years ago - Himalayan Yak in Jackson Heights. We started a post ages ago but never finished it, so we figured we'd finally get around to it now. We had a Groupon when we went there, and after perusing the menu, we ordered a few dishes which were all from the Tibetan sections of the menu, but Himalayan Yak also had dishes that were of Nepalese and Bhutanese origin.

Our Groupon entitled us to two drinks (either beer or house wine), one appetizer, and two entrees. This was definitely enough to eat for two on a hot summer night. We started with a couple of Heinekens.

For our appetizer, we split the fried gyuma which came with three condiments. Gyuma was their homemade Tibetan style sausage filled with beef blood and ground beef, and was supposed to be one of their specialties.

We got the gyuma fried (instead of steamed) based on the server's recommendation. It was spiced really nicely, and if you didn't know beforehand you most likely would never guess that this was a blood sausage. The sausage itself was mostly nice and tender, but the ends were a little tough to chew at the tie-off point. Because they were fried, the skin also had a little bite to it, but it paired well with the tender filling.

The first entree to arrive was the sha-bhaley, Tibetan beef patties filled with beef, onion and ginger, which was served with a small side of dangtsel, a classic Tibetan salad of cabbage, carrot and tomato tossed in vinegar.

The salad was delicious, very light which was perfect for the weather. It was a good accompaniment to the patties. The patties themselves were obviously heavier. They were like little hamburgers encased in a doughy, fried pastry puff. They were spiced nicely and were quite filling.

For the second entree, we got the steamed yak sha-momos. At the time, A hadn't had momos before (but had plenty of similar dumplings), but M had gotten Tibetan food once before and had some really good momos. It was the first time for both of us to eat yak though.

All the sha-momos were dumplings filled with ground meat, cabbage, onion, scallion, cilantro, garlic and ginger. We got one of the last orders of yak, as we heard many people trying to order it during our meal and being told they were sold out. We had good timing!

If we hadn't known the meat was yak, we might not have known. The main thing was that they weren't that greasy at all. We're not sure if it's all yak meat or just the meat they used for the momos, but it was very lean. Despite that, it was still very moist, and very flavorful. The momos were pretty good, but we also just really love dumplings so are reasonably easy to please when it comes to them.

We liked our meal at Himalayan Yak and planned to return, but we don't get out to Jackson Heights as often as we should. The cuisines of the Himalayan region are definitely some that we want to investigate and learn more about.

Christmas Dumplings

Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer for December had tons of new appetizers and frozen items that we had never seen before but sounded exciting. Chocolate raspberry tamales, shrimp toasts, tomato tiropita, so many new options! One that we knew we definitely wanted to try were these sriracha seafood potstickers with shrimp and crab ($3.99 for 12 potstickers). They looked so festive for Christmas in their red and green colors. There was a time when I used to buy all the holiday themed ravioli from Costco (like the colored shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day), so getting these was kind of a no-brainer.

We paired the dumplings with an Asian slaw (from this challenge) for a nice light dinner. One box of dumplings would definitely not have been enough (for either of us) for a full meal (the whole box was only 360 calories). Each potsticker had the same filling, no matter which color the wrapper was. (The red (more pink than red, really) dough got its color from beetroot juice and the green dough from spinach juice. Appreciate the natural colorings.) The filling consisted of the main ingredients of shrimp, "salad dressing," clear mung bean noodles, crab meat, and water chestnuts, along with seasonings that included sriracha powder, garlic powder, cilantro, mustard, and white pepper. (It isn't entirely clear which of those seasonings are part of the sriracha powder and which ones are there on their own as there is an unmatched parenthetical in the ingredient list that makes it very confusing.)

Although the box gave instructions for pan-frying and steaming, we opted to boil them because it was easier for us. Seemed fine. When I first saw the insides of the dumplings, I thought they were going to taste a little bit like the seafood mandoo we got over the summer. We liked the flavor here a little better, in part because of the heat. The shrimp and crab flavor was definitely there, but it wasn't an overpowering seafood flavor. It was nicely balanced by all the seasonings and the spice, giving it a sort of a "spicy-tangy-slightly-sweet" flavor profile (to take the description from TJ's blog). The spice level was relatively mild, but we liked that there was at least some heat to it.

Buy Again? Sure. These dumplings were pretty good and a decent price.

Han Dynasty

The Women's World Cup ended months ago, so we should probably finish those challenge recaps...

After our Women's World Cup challenge lunch at Northern Tiger, we continued our Chinese eating day with a trip to Philly import Han Dynasty. We had both read so much about how good the restaurant was and had wanted to go for a while (but we hate crowds), so we were really happy to get in without a wait (that's rare). We've had plenty of Sichuan food before so we were pretty excited to taste their take on it.

We did some research while perusing the menu and found the things that most people seemed to like when ordering. It seemed like there was near universal agreement on the 2 appetizers to get (we got both), and after that, a lot of the entrees were more of a personal preference. We started off with dumplings in chili oil (spice level 4) ($6.95). (All the menu items indicate their spice level, which was helpful, but we had no basis to figure out what a 4 or a 6 or an 8 meant in terms of our own tolerance.) These were similar to a lot of dumplings we've eaten from various other Sichuan restaurants, and they did not disappoint. We love these types of dumplings and the chili oil is a perfect accompaniment for the dumpling filling. 

The other widely loved appetizer was the dan dan noodles (spice level 6) ($7.95). We had eaten dan dan noodles before, and we really liked them so we figured we should try their offering if it was so highly touted. We're glad we did. There's something different with how they prepare their noodles. There was a subtle sweetness to the dish that you don't find in most places. The Sichuan peppercorns and chili oil provided the same level of heat we're accustomed to, and the soy sauce and scallions rounded out the dish. That hint of sweetness, though, is what really lingered with us and also what made this such a good dish.

For the entrees, the first one A chose was the dry pepper style chicken (spice level 8), which was described as triple flash fried chicken with long hots and dry chili peppers ($13.95). M was a little wary of what a spice level 8 might be, but figured at least it would be offset by our other entree if it were too spicy. It wasn't. Apparently we can tolerate a spice level 8 at Han Dynasty just fine (although we should note that we did not eat all the chili peppers on the plate, so maybe we didn't actually eat it at spice level 8).

This dish was really good. The spice was intense but in a good (and mostly tolerable) way. We felt our tongues numbing from the Sichuan peppercorns, but weren't unhappy about that. The chicken was fried well and packed with flavor. The pepper, scallion, onion garnish that came on top of the chicken reminded us of the garlic, onion, and pepper garnish that comes on top of the pork chops we usually get at Cantonese family dinners, except a spicy Sichuan version that was so good over rice. Overall, we really liked this and would absolutely eat it again.

The last dish we got was the crispy rice style chicken (spice level 0), which, according to the menu, had a sweet and sour sauce with bamboo shoots, tomatoes, black mushrooms, and pea leaves (what pea leaves?) served on pillows of sizzling crispy rice ($14.95). M wasn't sure what to expect with this one, but it wasn't really what arrived. When she hears crispy rice, she always thinks about the crispy rice (topped with tuna tartare) from Koi, which is more like blocks of stickier rice with crispy outside edges. These were more like dried, crispy blocks of rice which dissolved, broke apart, and gelatinized a little bit once they sat in the sauce for a while. Not at all what she thought it would be, but it was what A imagined. He'd eaten this sort of puffed rice cake thing when he was younger so he knew what to expect.

The flavors of this dish were fine, but nothing special in our opinion. The sweet and sour sauce was okay, it was nice to have vegetables to offset the other dishes, and the flavor was nice, but it just couldn't hold its own against the other entree we had on the table.

We really enjoyed our dinner at Han Dynasty and would definitely go back. We wouldn't get the crispy rice style again, but the other 3 dishes we got were all hits. 

Mandoo Bar

Early in the World Cup, we checked off South Korea for our WWC challenge. Technically, we didn't have to get Korean food at all for the challenge (explanation here) since we did it last year for the men's challenge, but we were having a lazy Saturday, just walking around instead of biking, and Koreatown was close for lunch. We almost went to get Korean fried chicken, just like last year, but decided to try to do something different and headed into Mandoo Bar for some mandoo (dumplings). The menu sounded good and we could see them making the dumplings in the window, so we were hopeful that they would be good.

To start off the meal, they gave each of us a salad. It was a very simple salad - just lettuce, red cabbage, and carrots with a ginger dressing - but it was refreshing and great for a summer afternoon.

They also dropped off a bowl of cold soy-pickled vegetables, including carrots, pickles, and what seemed to us like turnips. These were pretty good, also very refreshing.

We got 2 orders of mandoo. We weren't sure if that would be enough for lunch but with so many options in the city, we figured we could make a food crawl out of it if they weren't. First to arrive were the kimchee mandoo ($11.50 for 10 pieces), which were steamed dumplings filled with kimchee, tofu, pork, and vegetables.

We also got the combo mandoo plate ($14 for 12 pieces), which was 4 pieces each of the boiled pork, vegetable, and seafood dumplings. The pork ones were the white ones, the vegetables were green, and the seafood were orange. Rather than order any of those separately ($11 for 10 pieces in the case of pork or vegetable, $12 for 10 pieces for seafood), we thought it would be better to try out the combo so we could taste more, especially since we didn't know which would be our favorite.

The dumplings were all pretty good, but even though this is a restaurant that seems to specialize in mandoo by their name, we wouldn't say they're the best dumplings we've ever had. The flavor of the kimchee one was probably our favorite. It had a bit of heat to it from the kimchee, but it wasn't that strong or overwhelming. It just lent a nice flavor to the dumpling. However, the outer skin on that one, especially as the mandoo sat longer, got a bit tough and chewy, making it harder to eat.

From the combo, we liked the flavors of the pork and vegetable ones. Our least favorite dumpling overall was the seafood. It was fine, but the shrimp, crabstick, and vegetable combo inside just tasted a little strange in the dumpling, and we preferred the others. The texture of the combo dumpling wrappers was fantastic, just the right amount of chewiness, and that lasted for as long as it took us to eat them, unlike with the kimchee dumplings.

Overall, we had a nice lunch at Mandoo Bar. If we go back, we think we would want to try the goon mandoo - the pork and vegetable pan-fried dumplings - that we saw them making in the window. Those looked pretty good. We love dumplings and it's nice to have a spot where you can get so many different varieties!