excellent dumpling house

This joint was PACKED on a Friday evening when my wife and I came in for a quick bite. There’s another joint named Excellent Dumpling House in Chinatown. It has yet to be determined whether this is owned by the same folks.

Anyway, I was fighting off a cold, so I ordered a bowl of chicken dumpling noodle soup. It was pretty great, especially with some of their spicy chili oil.

I also tasted some of my wife’s soup dumplings, which were.. shall I say… excellent? Ha! Maybe. I mean they were constructed properly, cooked nicely… no ripping… But perhaps I haven’t had enough XLBs to really say what is excellent or just above average.

EXCELLENT DUMPLING HOUSE
165 W 23rd St
New York, NY 10011

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS CLOSED

Day two of jury duty gave me the opportunity to finally try Excellent Dumpling House, a small joint just below Canal on Lafayette that slings some decent cheap grub.

I grabbed three items to fuel my sense of civic duty.

1) fried pork dumplings.
These were crispy and light. I gobbled them up pretty quickly and was waiting for my next dish. I have to say, I was impressed with these and I had very low expectations going into it.

2) bbq duck egg roll
This was just mediocre. I was expecting a more dry experience as opposed to a highly sauced inside. That’s fine. It was just a little bland and slightly heavier on the vegetables as opposed to the duck.

3) steamed shrimp and crab dumplings
These were excellent. A full, good quality and perfectly cooked shrimp was inside each, along with some crab meat mash. The sauce it came with was like a spicy cream sauce. Not a fan of that. But the dumplings themselves were great. The skin didn’t rip too much, yet it wasn’t too thick and gummy.