Beiruo is turning out to by my foodie buddy goldmine this semester. I don't know what I'm going to do next year when she's gone and graduated!
Today was the St. Patrick's Day Celebration here in Chicago and while none of us are really that excited about parades and copious amounts of day drinking, Chicago does do this cool thing where they dye the whole River Green in celebration of the holiday.
For us first year non-native Chicagoians this event was a must see so we all met up around 10am (aka almost 11am by the time the 5 of us all finally arrived at the meeting point) and walked in the chilly city. With 25lbs of veggie dye the river was beyond saturated after it was dyed at 9am. Honestly this photo doesn't do it justice because it was indescribable how green this river became!
Like I mentioned, none us were that excited to wait for the parade so we prioritized lunch and went on our way. A couple of the girls had to go home to get some errands and work done but I'm not one to miss an opportunity to go out to eat somewhere new so Beiruo, Michaela, and I went on our way and decide to head to Chinatown to get out of the way of the St.Patrick's Day crowds. Of course, my trusty Beiruo knew just where to take us!
LOCATION: 2002 S WENTWORTH AVE, STE 103 CHICAGO, IL 60616
Back when Beiruo and Peiyang and I were in Chinatown for Lunar New Year Beiruo mentioned that there was an amazing dumpling place nearby that we had to go to. Peiyang is currently in NYC for the weekend so she couldn't come with us but we just won't mention that we went and we'll go with her again because this place was amazing. Beiruo says it's her favorite place in the world to get dumplings. I think that's a pretty heavy statement and think back to soup dumplings in Hong Kong but I will give it to her that these dumplings were incredible.
This place was super clean and bright. It's a very open space with wooden tables and benches with soft cushions and pillows to make things comfy. They even have a window into their kitchen so you can go up and watch the cooks making dumplings by hand. Their menu is presented on an iPad and you can swipe through all their different categories of dumplings. Michaela doesn't eat meat so we paid attention to veggie or seafood choices for her and ordered a potato salad to start, something I've never had before in a chinese restaurant, and then 12 piece orders of pork and cabbage dumplings for me and Beiruo to share, leek, egg, and shrimp dumplings, and Michaela's pick of zucchini and mushroom dumplings which we made into rainbow dumplings (I'll explain soon.)
The potato salad came out first and it was a light crisp 'salad' or cold dish with a slighty spicy kick to it that was really great. I'd order it again. I mean I'd order everything again but that's besides the point. We had the pork dumplings boiled and the other two steamed instead of fried because we all agreed it was the way to go. The pork came out first and it was this wonderful balance of salty and fresh. The skins they use for the dumplings are thin yet still have a great chew to them without being too thick. I'm pretty sure Beiruo burned her mouth on several occasions trying to pop a whole steaming hot dumpling into her mouth all at once only to have the scalding hot liquid inside wipe out her tastebuds. All in the name of 'efficiency'. This is why I love eating out with her, her adorableness never stops. She also gave us a little geography lesson and informed Michaela and I that in Southern China, where she's from, they eat dumplings with a dark vinegar while in the North they prefer soy sauce. Of course Michaela and I are super American and have only ever had dumplings with soy sauce but we were both willing to give it a shot and I ended up liking the salty sour taste of the vinegar while Michaela decide that while the vinegar was better than she expected, she would always be a soy sauce user.
The leek, egg, and shrimp dumplings came out next in their bamboo steamer and we all dug in. None of us have ever had egg in dumplings before but this was hands down our favorite of the three. I can't describe this dumpling, it was just a great balance. There was good texture and chew to the outside, a smooth melding of flavors on the inside and each one was just perfect. This is the dumpling I want to eat again and again because it doesn't get too salty or overpowering. Perfection.
Once we had polished off all of that food the final round of dumplings came out. This was the batch we were most excited for because we had ordered them as Rainbow mushroom zucchini dumplings! Basically, they make the skins 'rainbow' colored and we got to pick whatever filling we wanted. We aren't sure how they color the dumplings but we did figure out that the flavor didn't really change from color to color so it's purely aesthetic. We did feel like the skins were a little chewier in this batch likely due to the color but it wasn't terrible and overall it was exciting to see at least this once. This one was a little flat in terms of filling flavor and definitely benefited from dipping in the vinegar.
This is somewhere that I would want to go back to again and again. They have so many filling combinations and none of them seem bad to me. Beiruo says this is probably her fifth visit in the last 6months. I believe it because it's just THAT good. I can't wait until my dad comes back to visit Chicago because he needs to see this place. It's almost too good to be true.
Photo Cred to the random guys on the street that asked us to take their picture first