Tasting Shenyang Northeastern-Style Steamed Dumplings at Mother’s Dumplings Chinatown
We meet up with our food tour guide, Mike, just outside Mother’s Dumplings in Toronto’s Chinatown, where the group is loosely gathered. “We’re going to start here,” he says.
In to the restaurant we go. It’s still morning on a weekday, and there are only one or two people in the front of the restaurant. We make our way to the back, sitting at a long table, set up for our group. There’s a skylight hung with paper parasols which adds colour and keeps the room from being too dark.
You can read about the full Toronto Kensington and Chinatown food tour.
Northeastern-Style Steamed Dumplings at Mother’s Dumplings Chinatown
Just before the dumplings appear, our guide, Mike, demonstrates which vessels are our tea cup, and which is the dumpling dipping bowl. This could be easily missed by people unfamiliar with a Chinese restaurant, as they look somewhat similar.
The dipping sauce is custom made by each participant. We’re given three components, a black vinegar, (a Chinese version of Balsamic vinegar), which Mike suggests should be added 3-parts vinegar to 1-part soy sauce. There’s a chili oil to add heat.
Depending on dietary restrictions, we are about to try 2 or 3 different types of steamed Northeastern-style Chinese dumplings. The owner and chef, Zhen, has said that her delicious food comes from the recipes she learned from her mother in Shenyang, China.
The dumplings come to the table billowing steam, in round bamboo steamers set atop colourfully-trimmed Chinese plates. All of the dumplings are shaped slightly different, and have different colours.
We can try a Shrimp, Egg and Chive, a Winter Melon and Tofu, and/or a Bok Choi, Mushroom and Tofu. We quickly dive in. I eat both the Shrimp, Egg and Chive dumplings and Winter Melon dumplings, leaving the Bok Choi, Mushroom and Tofu for our new vegetarian friends. The flavours in these dumplings are mild and subtle.
Watching Mother’s Dumplings Experts Make the Fresh Dumplings
While we eat, the kitchen is busy, chopping, chopping, chopping behind the glass screens set up to divide the restaurant from the kitchen, while allowing a full view of the goings-on.
I get a tour of the kitchen, where there are bowls and bowls of dumpling fillings. I can’t imagine how many hours it would take me to make up dim sum dumplings using these bowls of fillings in tiny spoonfuls. Thank goodness there are well-trained experts here with fast hands.
Three women, standing behind the glass wall are rolling dough, dividing the long rolls into individual pieces. One woman has finished separating the pieces and is deftly tweaking the pieces into small pillows of dough.
From this stage they roll each pillow into a flat circle, and add the filling to form dumplings. The women talk to one another as they continue, but there is a rhythm and focus to their work which delivers consistent results in their similar-looking dumplings.
These women have much to prepare as Mother’s Dumplings Chinatown is a busy restaurant that serves thousands of dumplings each day.
Enjoyed July, 2019
Mother’s Dumplings
421 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON
(416) 217-2008
