Packed - Hyde Park dumples

http://www.hrwiki.org/wiki/The_Jolly_Dumple

Four doors east (Noodles Etc.) of Packed, one can get 6 shumai or gyoza, 10 fried wonton, 8 char siu cigars, or 2 giant chive dumplings or bao for $4. These are not best of breed but are served appropriately golden-crisp or steamed, come with some house-doctored sauces, and many are made onsite. Tables are consistently occupied, and staff keeps things turning over quickly.

The early review roundup of Packed's first weeks reveals price as the pain point; individual dumplings run about $2 each, with several having a surcharge (in tiny print) making them $2.50+ perdumple. These are all perhaps 1/4 the weight of a Pasadita taco. They aren't yet served quickly (puzzlingly), whether the lines are long are not in the Edwardo's-cum-Avec paneled hall.

However, they are in my experience so far imaginatively conceived and composed, Sheerin farm-pedigreed, and intensely flavored. They will also rotate monthly, making it doubly complicated to convey replicable experience, since not all of the menu is live yet (a whole section of ladled offerings hasn't been rolled out, er, up, yet). For right now, I'd highly recommend the house-smoked pastrami gyoza-style dumplings with braised onions and violet mustard. About 8 of them and a $4.79 tub of conscienced sour cream from Z&H might make a hunger dent. Is this forced intersection better than a comparable bite at Manny's or Xi'an Cuisine? It's certainly more colorful. The caramel-squash and duck-pork-olive varieties aren't quite as effective in their self-contained contrasts, though I'd get stuffed on a platterful if someone else had the purse.

The nitro draft cold brew coffee is very smooth and does add something to the three immediately adjacent coffee-focused storefronts.

http://www.packeddumplings.com/

1321 East 57th Street, Chicago
(312) 219-6544

According to a sign on the door, Packed has closed up shop for good.

Source:

http://chicago.eater.com/2016/5/10/1165 ... pling-shop

I don't want any business to fail this quickly. I hadn't posted recently but was visiting twice a week for their excellent nitro iced coffee, which (unlike the dumplings) was a flavor and value improvement over neighboring offerings. I would occasionally get a mac side with the fresh jalapeño and dried mushroom crunchies and enjoyed that. The best dumpling I had was the lemongrass chicken, essentially tom kha XLB, but it came with a speech ("ladled dumplings can take up to 15 minutes to prepare. Are you sure you want to wait?"). Why offer something you are uncomfortable or doubtful serving it? The worst was the second iteration tamale dumpling (with masa INSIDE a regular dumpling wrapper, instead of with a custom masa wrapper). Dry to the point of inedibility.

The room looked nice and they were open late and did some nice campus deliveries (sure, I would have preferred actual meatballs and red sauce to meatballs inside dumplings with red sauce smear, but the quality was there) and had a clear (laborious, repetitive, approaching sanctimonious) commitment to sustainability. There is enough lecturing in the neighborhood already, though. There was still room for dumplings on the block, and perhaps they eventually would have realized Qing Xiang Yuan was more of the model needed than Imperial Lamian. I wish they'd had more time.

Of passing interest: The University is getting out of property management on the same block (http://chicagoist.com/2016/05/04/univer ... ell_zh.php).

More here - http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/re ... story.html