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Golden Europe Restaurant in Arvada.
Golden Europe Restaurant in Arvada.
Ruth Tobias

Around the World in 10 Dishes: Dumpling Edition

Exploring the global food scene on the Front Range, dish by dish.

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Golden Europe Restaurant in Arvada.
| Ruth Tobias

If you thought flatbreads were hard to categorize, just try wrapping your head around dumplings for a minute. You could start with the narrowest definition, as offered by the Oxford Companion to Food: a small blob of steamed or boiled dough. But suppose there’s a bit of filling inside that blob. Suppose it’s baked or fried. And how small is small? At what point do dumplings become, say, buns, tamales, doughnut holes or Cornish pasties?

Our answer may not fly with Oxford editors, but most cooks will appreciate it: you draw the line by feel, by instinct, as well as by common sense and practice. (For example, we’re perfectly comfortable with the idea that most stuffed pastas, like ravioli and tortelloni, are also dumplings, whereas empanadas, samosas and knish are not.)

Here are 10 goodies at the top of our list, but there are so many others that a sequel post will be in order soon—stay tuned.

· Around the World in 10 Dishes: Flatbread Edition [EDEN]
· Wine Time in a Beer Town: Can You Drink Reds with Seafood? [EDEN]

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The Bagel Deli

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Funny how you can’t say kreplach without hacking up some phlegm, yet the thing itself—as served in chicken soup—gets glowing credit the world over for relieving the very symptom it triggers. Whether or not lunch at this southeast longtimer really trumps a trip to the doctor’s office, guaranteed a bowl of its goldene yoich, complete with these smooth little beef-stuffed envelopes of goodness, beats the taste of Mucinex any day.

Belvedere

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Generally speaking, Westminster’s Cracovia Restaurant and Bar is the place to beat for Polish eats, including the half-moon morsels known the world round as pierogi—which may be boiled, baked or fried, incorporating anything from ground meat to mashed potatoes to onions and sauerkraut or fruit. But this rustic downtown charmer gets the gold star for one type in particular: tender, buttery, sweet-cheese pierogi, which blur the line between dinner and dessert.

China Jade

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Not to knock cheesy fried crab rangoon, but you haven’t had wontons until you’ve had them Szechuan-style—as at China Jade, where the silken, pork-filled bundles of joy called hong you chao shou come doused in chili oil and sprinkled with scallions.

David's Kebab House

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Pelmeni aren’t dubbed the Russian ravioli for nothing. This mom-and-pop cafe in a south Denver strip mall makes the cutest proof of that, in the form of fat little chicken- or beef-stuffed buttons drizzled with olive oil and topped with sour cream.

Golden Europe Restaurant

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Czech houskové knedlíky are basically reconstituted bread slices, but we prefer to think of them as gravy sponges. That’s the function they serve at this cozy Mitteleuropan kitchen in Arvada, anyway, absorbing (for instance) the velvety spiced sour-cream sauce that tops tender, sauerbraten-like beef svíčková.

Ella Fine Diner

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Edwin Zoe obviously loves his comfort food—and the women in his life who make it. Not only did he his install his Taiwanese mom in the kitchen of Zoe Ma Ma, he enlisted the help of his Hungarian mother-in-law in designing the menu for Ella, right down to the kneidlach (matzoh balls). She nailed it: they’re airy and tender and all the better for soaking in Zoe’s light, bright chicken soup.

Il Pastaio

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Gnocchi di patate fatta in casa (“housemade potato dumplings”) may be the most fun phrase to say in Italian ever, and this little family-run Boulder gem may be the most fun place to say it. You get your choice of 11 sauces with the pillowy spud nuggets (to use another fun phrase), but the classic pesto’s the way to go.

Lao Wang Noodle House

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Many Chinese-food experts go to great lengths explaining why Shanghai’s world-famous xiao long bao shouldn’t be confused with proper soup dumplings (the name actually means “little basket buns”). But against a cross-cultural American backdrop, you can’t unsee how the loose English description sticks to these supple pouches of pork in gelatinous broth. And yes, Lao Wang still makes the best.

Star Kitchen

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When it comes to dumplings, this dim sum diamond doesn’t make a clunker. But if for some unfathomable reason you were to limit yourself to one type, make it a plate of golden-fried, egg-shaped ham sui gok. They’re quite the studies in contrast: glutinous-rice flour gives the crunchy shell its light sweetness, while the soy gravy in the ground-pork filling adds savory richness. Swoon. Make it two plates.

Tom's Home Cookin'

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If there’s one dish that illustrates how tradition trumps precise terminology, it’s chicken and dumplings. Throughout the American South, the name covers everything from stews laced with what are essentially noodles—made from flattened and cut dough—to whole biscuits smothered in chicken gravy. On Wednesdays, this Five Points fixture serves up the latter version; rest assured you’d rather shut up and eat it than squabble over dictionary definitions.

The Bagel Deli

Funny how you can’t say kreplach without hacking up some phlegm, yet the thing itself—as served in chicken soup—gets glowing credit the world over for relieving the very symptom it triggers. Whether or not lunch at this southeast longtimer really trumps a trip to the doctor’s office, guaranteed a bowl of its goldene yoich, complete with these smooth little beef-stuffed envelopes of goodness, beats the taste of Mucinex any day.

Belvedere

Generally speaking, Westminster’s Cracovia Restaurant and Bar is the place to beat for Polish eats, including the half-moon morsels known the world round as pierogi—which may be boiled, baked or fried, incorporating anything from ground meat to mashed potatoes to onions and sauerkraut or fruit. But this rustic downtown charmer gets the gold star for one type in particular: tender, buttery, sweet-cheese pierogi, which blur the line between dinner and dessert.

China Jade

Not to knock cheesy fried crab rangoon, but you haven’t had wontons until you’ve had them Szechuan-style—as at China Jade, where the silken, pork-filled bundles of joy called hong you chao shou come doused in chili oil and sprinkled with scallions.

David's Kebab House

Pelmeni aren’t dubbed the Russian ravioli for nothing. This mom-and-pop cafe in a south Denver strip mall makes the cutest proof of that, in the form of fat little chicken- or beef-stuffed buttons drizzled with olive oil and topped with sour cream.

Golden Europe Restaurant

Czech houskové knedlíky are basically reconstituted bread slices, but we prefer to think of them as gravy sponges. That’s the function they serve at this cozy Mitteleuropan kitchen in Arvada, anyway, absorbing (for instance) the velvety spiced sour-cream sauce that tops tender, sauerbraten-like beef svíčková.

Ella Fine Diner

Edwin Zoe obviously loves his comfort food—and the women in his life who make it. Not only did he his install his Taiwanese mom in the kitchen of Zoe Ma Ma, he enlisted the help of his Hungarian mother-in-law in designing the menu for Ella, right down to the kneidlach (matzoh balls). She nailed it: they’re airy and tender and all the better for soaking in Zoe’s light, bright chicken soup.

Il Pastaio

Gnocchi di patate fatta in casa (“housemade potato dumplings”) may be the most fun phrase to say in Italian ever, and this little family-run Boulder gem may be the most fun place to say it. You get your choice of 11 sauces with the pillowy spud nuggets (to use another fun phrase), but the classic pesto’s the way to go.

Lao Wang Noodle House

Many Chinese-food experts go to great lengths explaining why Shanghai’s world-famous xiao long bao shouldn’t be confused with proper soup dumplings (the name actually means “little basket buns”). But against a cross-cultural American backdrop, you can’t unsee how the loose English description sticks to these supple pouches of pork in gelatinous broth. And yes, Lao Wang still makes the best.

Star Kitchen

When it comes to dumplings, this dim sum diamond doesn’t make a clunker. But if for some unfathomable reason you were to limit yourself to one type, make it a plate of golden-fried, egg-shaped ham sui gok. They’re quite the studies in contrast: glutinous-rice flour gives the crunchy shell its light sweetness, while the soy gravy in the ground-pork filling adds savory richness. Swoon. Make it two plates.

Tom's Home Cookin'

If there’s one dish that illustrates how tradition trumps precise terminology, it’s chicken and dumplings. Throughout the American South, the name covers everything from stews laced with what are essentially noodles—made from flattened and cut dough—to whole biscuits smothered in chicken gravy. On Wednesdays, this Five Points fixture serves up the latter version; rest assured you’d rather shut up and eat it than squabble over dictionary definitions.

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