since ‘premiere on broadway’ opened, magoun square has really changed, and not in a good way, at least from the perspective of this 25+ year resident.
first, pini’s pizza, where i would stop in for a slice, has moved to medford — good news is they deliver.
now it looks like wang’s chinese — and their excellent dumplings — is gone, as well.
Sorry to hear that you’ve lost these local places that are meaningful to you.
I am also terribly sad about the loss of Wang’s. It was initially reported here that they were closing for renovation, but now word on the street (ie Davis Square facebook) is that they’re closed for good. If anyone has more info, I would appreciate it.
I always felt their food was way better than their terrible, ugly and frankly grungy space would have you believe. I kept hoping that they’d do a remodel and just go with clean, uncluttered surfaces- I think it might have done a lot for them. They did a brisk take out business as far as I could tell through the pandemic, but I don’t know what the bigger picture in that space looks like and there are reports of strange real estate shadiness and complaints about Premier, etc.
I will really miss Wang’s, too; they’ve been up and down over the years, but we tried their frozen dumplings again during the pandemic and found the quality back up, so we’d been getting those regularly.
If anyone has recommendations for a good source of frozen vegetable dumplings, I’d love to hear them! (We’ve also been getting momos from Tasty Momo; their vegetable momos are delicious but delicate.)
Quingdao on Mass Ave in North Cambridge sells bags of frozen dumplings. I find them comparable to Wang’s when eaten in house, but have never bought theirs frozen so can’t directly vouch. I much preferred Wang’s other food to Quingdao on the whole.
Has anyone tried the Mei Mei dumplings?
Yes, I tried the Mei Mei dumplings in January.
Unfortunately, those dumplings are a no for me as much as I’d love to support their business. We found the dumpling skins to be thick and the fillings kinda stodgy for our preferences. Ingredients seemed high-quality, so props for that. The dumplings just weren’t for us.
We regularly went to Qingdao for dumplings until the pandemic started, but every time we asked about frozen dumplings, they said they weren’t selling them. We’ll have to see whether that’s changed, as their spinach dumplings were quite good.
Onions, my 9 year old spring onion literally came to tears today. She asked when we could get smoked tofu from Wang’s which is what she usually asks for for her birthday, and I told her maybe never. Kid after my own heart. Any thoughts on a similar dish? Strips of smoked tofu stir fried with pork and a little bit of veg, pretty basic garlic/soy sauce I think.
Mulan has a shredded pork with dry bean curd and baby chives which I really like (not smoked though, sorry). If you want to try making it at home, The Woks of Life has a pretty good recipe where you could sub smoked tofu for the five spice one they use.
Mulan also has lots of dumplings!
Thanks for the Mulan mention. After their prolonged closure a few years ago, they never made it back onto my rotation. I must fix that.
I aspire to this and yet have no suggestions.
