The Rockville Dumpling crawl is history.
East Dumpling House: cold eggplant; smashed cukes; northeast cold dish were our starters. The noodle in the cold dish are house made, the toppings plentiful and the chiles tasty. The cukes was standard but very tasty indeed. The eggplant has a chopped garlic, ginger based topping that was hot. The three dumplings were very good. As is the case in north and East dumplings the doughs were thicker as flour is the main carb of these areas and not rice. My favorite filling was the chicken double mushroom steamed dumplings followed closely by the egg & vermicelli which we had boiled, and third but also quite good was pan fried pork and dill dumpling.
Sichuan Jin River: Baotze w/jicai; zhong’s dumpling; xlb, beef jerky, black fungus w/pickled sichuan pepper. The Boatze has an outstanding filling which they also happen to serve as a stirfry with bao on the side. I would go with that. The Zhong’s were quite tasty but not that spicy. The XLB were quite controversial: the broth and dumpling were full of cinnamon heavy 5 spice powder and a thin soup. The skins were brittle. So as soup dumplings, they were not the best, but alot of us liked them a lot. I thought they were tasty but unbalanced with too thin a soup. Both cold plates were really good.
Bobs Shanghai 66 showed very well. The cold dishes were baby bamboo shoot which were incredible in both texture and flavor that was not briny in chile oil that persisted, and Taiwanese kimchi which was sweet and sour pickled nappa, really refreshing. The pork soup dumplings were incredible, just perfect balance of thin skin and rich juice. The pork and shrimp Shiu Mai were just as good with a very rich flavor. Spicy won tons in oil were very good but gone in a small bite.
Final stop for dumplings was Yu’s Noodles. Excellent hot noodle with fish egg, 1/4 duck, pan fried pork bun, chicken double mushrooms dumplings. The duck was frozen in the center and warm at the edge which I did not know of it was intentional or just sloppy microwave skills. In any case, the duck was amazing.The hot noodle was sharp and pungent, an excellent dish especially shared. The pan fried buns were outstanding dough and a good filling. If you took Sichuan Jin River’s filling in Yu’s skins, you would have the ideal bun. The chicken and mushroom dumpling, which they generously gave us 11 in an order of 10 so everyone could have an individual dumpling, was quite good but not as distinct a filling as at East Dumpling House.
After that, people started peeling off and some wanted dessert so we went tot eh Thai Ice Cream spot next to Yu’s: 52o. They have an anti griddle and do the rolled ice cream thing. I am not a fan but this was good for the genre with a smoother texture than most I have had.
So it wound up $45 per person including a lot of tipping at each stop. All 4 spots were superb but we were misusing Sichuan Jin River as it is a place to show off cooking skills in stir frys and braised dishes. Bob’s was as good as it has ever been. Yu’s really was spot on and I would definitely think of it for a revisit.