Vanessa's Dumpling House

Vanessa's Dumpling House at 118 Eldridge St (btw Canal and Hester) is a little gem on the LES that serves a simple menu of dumplings, sesame pancake sandwiches and soups (including noodle soups). For under $10, you can get a great meal here with a variety of flavours, textures and delicious fillings both for vegetarians and carnivores alike.

We ordered three dishes to split between two people: a Peking Duck sandwich, Fried Pork Dumplings and Steamed wontons with spicy sauce. For those of you who like duck, there's nothing nicer than some thinly sliced and shredded duck, batoned cucumber and hoisin sauce, tucked between a large fluffy sesame pancake that has been fried in a huge skillet and let to rise. One of the cooks is solely responsible for all of the sandwiches on order and these come nice and hot as each huge pancake is finished cooking and transferred to her station. She then slices the pancake into pizza-like wedges cuts each wedge in half (like a bagel) and fills it with the required filling. There are other fillings like roasted pork, roasted beef, veggies and tuna, but why eat anything other than duck?!

The fried pork dumplings were a bit dry, but the chive and pork filling was delicious. Dipped in a bit of soy/chili sauce, these dumplings come to life. The steamed wontons with spicy sauce were absolutely delicious. I wish I had a picture to share with you, but imagine 6 dumplings that are perfectly steamed and served on a fancy white Styrofoam plate. Then these are drizzled in chilli oil, sesame oil, burned garlic and chives. The shrimp and pork flavours blend wonderfully and are moist delicous. We've been back once already for the pancake sandwiches and hope to come back again for the dumplings. You go Vanessa!

(On a side note, I'm pretty sure none of the Chinese staff working at Vanessa's Dumpling House are named Vanessa, but who cares? With prices this low and food this tasty, it doesn't really matter). Deliciously eating in New York city.

Joe's Shanghai

Down among the vegetable and fruit vendors of Chinatown lies as small yet popular Chinese restaurant called Joe's Shanghai (9 Pell St
(between Bowery & Doyers St). They are written up in all the travel guides as a great place for Pork Soup dumplings, which they will bring to your table in a bamboo basket lined with lettuce leaves. Don't worry, you won't be eating the lettuce - it just keeps these little guys moist. Inside each pocket of dumpling is a ball of minced pork meat and pork soup broth. Be careful as you eat these or else you'll end up with greasy soup in your lap. Hint, carefully place a dumpling in your soup spoon, add a bit of sauce, bite the top or side and quickly slurp up the soup inside. Then you're free to consume the rest of your now soup-less dumpling.

When you're on your own or in a smaller party, the hostess at Joe's Shanghai will put you at a communal table (typical of busy restaurants in the East. Sitting at a communal table with 8 other strangers makes it feel like you've ordered tons more food as you can see what your eating companions order that might tickle your fancy. When we sat down, a family of four were digging into a spicy looking noodle dish (pictured here). After a quick "Hey, what are you eating?" and some translation by their 12-year old daughter, they quickly pointed to Peking Noodles on the menu. We were sold. These noodles come slathered in a spicy sauce, thickened undoubtedly with cornstarch (the Chinese equivalent of a roux-butter and flour), minced pork and mini-cubes of tofu. While tasty and flavourful, the whole meal still left us with slightly uneasy stomachs (as most Chinese meals do). We had also ordered mixed veggies and tofu which had been fried in a wok with too much oil and oyster sauce. Maybe our iron stomachs can't deal with the oil, or we're just lightweights.