Dumpling King

Dumpling King (15 Northtown Way, North York, Ontario)

416-226-6818

I was impressed with Dumpling King the first time I went there. It was charmingly casual, and the Dumpling King (whose face is on the sign outside) was very people pleasing despite his limited English.

I never realized how multicultural the sign was at the top.

The sign is complete with Engrish like "Vegitanian". 

These fried dumplings were what impressed me upon my first visit.

As I bit into one, the meat juice inside squirted a good projectile that landed about a foot and a half to my side. We ate the rest of them very slowly. 

I like that the noodles have that handmade shape to them.

My second visit there was just as memorable, but not in a good way... I've mentioned Dumpling Princess before, and this is when we encountered her.

Dumpling Princess incident:

We ordered almost everything on the menu. We tried to get the noodles, but they ran out that day. When we got our bill, we noted that we had been charged for the noodles. Not a problem, the girl made adjustments and gave the charges back to us. Then, we checked again just in case, and noted that we were charged for two orders of soup dumplings (which we ordered), but we were only served one bowl of it. We tried to explain this to the girl. That's when it all went wrong. Dumpling Princess immediately made some sort of whiny tantrum noise and started yelling at us in Mandarin. I had no idea what was going on. Dumpling King came out from the back and he looked angry. I think he said something to us in Mandarin as well. After some commotion, Jess understood enough to tell us what was going on. We had been given two orders of soup dumplings in one bowl, but they hadn't been able to communicate this to us. All that fuss could have been avoided with calm communication - hand gestures, slower Mandarin speaking, broken English, etc. Anything but yelling at customers would have been better.

Dumpling King later apologized to us, but not before he and Dumpling Princess yelled at each other in the back. She promptly stomped out of the restaurant after that.

As for the name Dumpling Princess, Jo didn't think that a normal staff member would yell at the boss that way, and thought the girl must have been a relative of his, possibly his daughter. Thus, Jo dubbed her Dumpling Princess.

Would I return? Not by myself. I'm still afraid of Dumpling Princess. Otherwise, food is okay and prices are decent for portions that you get.