I’m doing a dumpling crawl this Saturday, so far we have:
- Kang Kang for sjb
- Hui to Xiang for potstickers
- Beijing pie house for meat pies
- ???
- ???
- !!!
- Happy duck house Peking duck (I know it’s not a dumpling but
Any other suggestions/favs?
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i prefer the sjb at tasty (EDIT: it was late and i knew the name wasn’t right) NOODLE house (the dalian place) near golden deli. as for hui tou xiang i always thought it was more about the unusual shape, i’d rather go to luscious (now EDIT: ONE ONE) in the same mall.
other worthy stops:
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fish dumplings at qing dao bread food.or zui xiang yuan (old flavor garden) or get the fish dumplings at QDBF and on to ZXY for other dumplings (which are all pretty good)
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XLB at shanghai dumpling house
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if you’re going to BPH, go to noodle house one mall to the… east. just about everything on the menu is assembled after you order. budget extra time accordingly.
i’ll edit the post if something else comes to mind.
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Appreciate the picks!
@secretasianman do you mean tasty noodle house for sjb? Tasty dining seems to be a Sichuan place and I can’t find a tasty dumpling.
Try the Giant dumpling at Long Xing Ji. It is served with a straw so you can sip the juice out before attacking the bao.
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I would add qing dao bread food and one one dumplings (formerly luscious dumplings).
My lucky peach dump crawl
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I don’t think you’re supposed to eat the bao?
Thanks how many people were with you? Was this all in one trip?
Trying to strategize on how to preserve belly space.
What about JYTH?
I consider that thing the circus act, bacon-wrapped monstrosity of post-Communist Chinese cuisine. But enjoy, if you are into giant buns.
Some people like giant buns (and they cannot lie)…
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you’re not, but we decided that for $5 we weren’t going to let it go to waste. i’d pass rather than repeat the experience.
and i trust that you’re taking at least 3-4 more people with you or you will fill up fairly quickly.
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kanye west?
Yes there will be seven of us
1 trip, 4 people, 10 hours, 80 dumplings.
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#OG #gangsta
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Wow impressive and scary!
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Thanks for all the recommendations ftc members! We rented a van off Turo to ferry myself and six other people to sgv from la for a great Sunday food crawl. We started at around 330 so there were no lines or waits for any of the food. My picture skills aren’t the best but I tried to get some shots before we pigged out too much.
We started off at Kang Kang food court. With the Kang Kang sjbs, as usual they were piping hot and super crunchy on the bottom with great flavor and burn your mouth level soup. The soup is very luscious and meaty and this is probably one of my favorite dumplings in sjb. Also I’m not sure what’s in the dipping sauce but it does a good job of cutting the richness of the sjb. Also if you ever want skip the wait since the sjbs take about 20-25 min to cook just call for it to go and eat the to go plate in the restaurant. Always strikes me as odd that they make such good sjbs but everything else in the front of the house buffet looks so bad and old (like food poisoning level bad)
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Red oil pig ears at Zhui Xiang yuan. Very well cooked, pressed, and sliced with a crunchy yet yielding texture. Chili oil was straight forward but well done, super spicy with hints of five spice and a slight mala tingling finish. Such a good appetizer for 4 dollars.
Two types of Shui jao dumplings that the nice grandma/old lady at zhui Xiang yuan recommended. First was the fish and celery. The fish was ground and the celery flavor was distinct. The wrappers were thick but very slippery and tender. I really enjoyed the fish shui jao but others in my group really thought the celery flavor was too strong.
The second shui jao was sea cucumber shrimp and pork. This was pretty straightforward and tasty but not very remarkable couldn’t really taste the sea cucumber flavor although I did enjoy that there were large pieces of shrimp in the shui jao.
Beef roll was delicious at Zxy. The pancake was layered and crispy on the outside with a good chew and the fillings were well balanced with slices of tender well seasoned beef, cilantro, cucumbers, and sweet hoisin sauce. It was a large and generous portion without being unwieldy and I think this might be my favorite beef roll in town.
We stopped at you kitchen which newly opened since one of my friends read about it in the LA times. We had two orders of guo tei dumplings (pan fried). They have a really confusing touch screen ordering system.
We had a fish potsticker and a pork and shrimp potsticker. We had originally ordered a pork and pickled cabbage potsticker but the lady said they were out. It’s a new place so I figure they were still working out the kinks. You can see the workers making the dumplings in a window by the kitchen ala dtf which is kinda cool.
The wrappers were deliciously crispy and tender. But I wouldn’t say either of the potstickers were super memorable filling wise although the fish potsticker had filleted pieces of fish which I found quite intersting and an intense fish flavor (in a good way) that was much stronger than the ground fish sui jao at zxy. The lady recommended that the Lao wais order a chicken potsticker which made me 
The 4th stop was at Beijing pie house. We ordered a lamb and squash pie along with a pork and leek pancake. Lamb pie was outstanding, over flowing with juice, a strong gamey lamb flavor with squash that provided a vegetal note along with a softer texture. Some of the group thought it was too big and too stuffed but I pretty much like everything at bph.
The pork and leek pancake was also delicious I added some vinegar to cut through the richness of the pork and this pancake reminds me of a lamajouns deeply layered, crunchy and oniony cousin.
We got the pumpkin and shrimp dumplings which the waitress said were the most popular and her favorite. Came out with a nice dumpling skirt and was probably my second favorite dumpling of the night. Strong pumpkin flavor that went surprisingly well with the whole pieces of shrimp. Reminded me of an Italian ravioli filling.
Funny story the waitress asked us if we were at zxy earlier because she lives right by there and saw us hanging out in the parking lot. It was pretty cringey, funny and kinda embarrassing since we were outed as gluttons and fatasses 
We concluded the crawl with Peking duck, which I know are not dumplings🧐. Ended up at duck house since Ji Rong had no reservations until 8pm. The skin was super crispy and well rendered and the duck meat was deboned and moist. I definitely prefer the thin wrappers over the baos for Peking duck. I was disappointed that the duck wasn’t even slightly warm but was basically room temperature. I ended up eating about six or seven wrappers worth of duck since most of the women by that point were full. Not my favorite Peking duck in the world but even a medicorce Peking Duck makes me happy. Will have to try Ji Rong next time.
Ended with an eel sticky rice. A lot of the group loved this dish. It reminded my of an anago bowl at a Japanese restaurant with sticky rice substituted. Thought the eel was just ok a bit over cooked and slightly fishy. A large portion of the group loved it. However, I decided to focus my final stomach capacity on eating the duck and let the others have most of this.
Not pictured but we had fosselmans ice cream for dessert which capped off an epic day of eating mint chip 4 life!!
On a side note, we had Chinese speakers with us but every place we went to spoke some level of English and I’m pretty sure it would have been fine even without any Chinese speakers, probably would just have to do a lot more pointing and gestures. Everyone was super nice and patient, except for the line workers at Kang Kang who always seem to be grumpy but I guess I would be too if I worked there.
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LOL
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i was there saturday. the ordering system wasn’t bad - just impatient it timed out a few times while we were still trying to assimilate the menu. the categories are listed on the right (which i thought odd) plus at the end the english option disappeared and it asked you to confirm your order in chinese.
but if they allow people internet access to their ordering system i see them doing big business to go for people who can preorder and have their order ready to go without having to wait.
i had the potstickers with the pork and pickled cabbage. i thought they were well prepared and decent for the price.
the JJM was a bit on the sweet side, plus the noodles were reminiscent of udon in terms of texture.
lastly we had the steamed buns with pork and corn
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