Best Dumplings? Planning a "Dumpling Crawl"

My friends and I have decided to do a dumpling crawl, focusing on Chinatown and Asian dumplings. While we want to plan a compact evening, as in a traditional pub crawl, we are willing to make our way to other must-try dumpling destinations, as long as they are easily accessed from Chinatown. What are your recommendations for dumplings that should not be missed?!

I like the soup dumplings at Mandarin Kitchen.

2143 S Archer Ave
Chicago, IL 60616
(312) 328-0228

Ed's Dumpling House should be on the list. From the report on this board, the departure of the head chef does not "seem" to affect the quality of their dumplings yet. Katy's also would be my rec, but it's a bit beyond the Chinatown area.

If I could have the street vendors hand-made gyoza while I was in Japan, I'd definitely recommend it, but I have not seen/read/heard of a place that has guranteed in house hand-made gyoza (which I'm sure a lot Japanese places do). If anyone on the board has info on this, I'd love to hear it.

fenger wrote:Ed's Dumpling House should be on the list. From the report on this board, the departure of the head chef does not "seem" to affect the quality of their dumplings yet.

I was at Ed's two weeks ago and noticed no difference in quality.

I'm not really sure what was the status of the cook/chef who left Ed's Potsticker House to work at Lao Beijing. The owners of Ed's train people to cook in their style. They have also been known to work in the kitchen themselves.

However, you could go to Lao Beijing in the Chinatown Mall to test their soup dumplings as well, which is where the cook/chef from Ed's now works.

Regards,

Whoa. A dumpling crawl sounds the greatest idea ever. Ed's is high on my list to take some friends of mine in order to re-create some dumpling gluttony that I experienced in Xi'an, China last year.

One question - how easy is it to order at Ed's if you're not Chinese? Are the menus in Chinese? Call me silly, but I'm a little apprehensive to roll in with a big group of non-Chinese speakers and then have no idea what to order. This has been my concern with Katy's as well. (and if you're wondering how we pulled it off in China, we were with a Mandarin speaker!)

Hi,

You are not walking into Katie's alone when you have a translated menu printout in your hands.

Regards,

jn2001 wrote:One question - how easy is it to order at Ed's if you're not Chinese? Are the menus in Chinese? Call me silly, but I'm a little apprehensive to roll in with a big group of non-Chinese speakers and then have no idea what to order. This has been my concern with Katy's as well. (and if you're wondering how we pulled it off in China, we were with a Mandarin speaker!)

I guarantee you will crack the Ed's waitress up if you order soup dumplings by asking for xiao long bao. Roughly pronounced, I believe, as shyeeow long baow (or maybe not, and that was the source of the laughter).

Other than that, it was fairly easy to order at Ed's. Much easier than, say, Mandarin Kitchen, Katy's, or even Double Li.