Chinese Dumpling House, or 真東北餃子館 as they’re known in Chinese (the signage has no English), has been at its Metro Square location for decades. Though they are not as big and shiny-looking as some of the newer/renovated Northern-style dim sum places, they are serious about tradition.
We arrived at peak lunch hour and waited about 15 minutes for a table. The place was small and cramped, but service was fairly fast considering they make everything to order. The dim sum was really cheap, and we went a bit nuts – ordered way too much! But that just means leftovers for the next meal.
The green onion pancake came in a dough twist form, which is something I’ve never seen before. It was light and crisp, with very aromatic scallions. The dough was not salty enough, however, and since it was a dough twist instead of a proper pancake, the inner layers were thick and chewy, instead of crispy.
The pork intestines tasted a bit off, as if they’d been sitting out for too long. The spicy marinate was decent though, so I ended up picking out and eating all the shredded vegetables.
I can’t remember the Chinese name for this, but it is a cold dish featuring liang fen, which is mung bean jelly (also known as nokdumuk in Korean). Liang fen doesn’t really taste like anything, which is why it is a great ingredient in cold dishes, because it pretty much goes with everything. This particular platter also consisted of cucumber, carrots, cooked pork strands, mu er, sliced egg wrappers, coriander, and sesame paste. Everything tasted great except, surprisingly, the sesame paste, which bogged everything down instead of making it lighter, the way mung bean jelly cold dishes usually feel.
This vegetarian dish was spectacular. It consisted of eggplants, potatoes, onions, and peppers, and it was so delicious and savoury. The vegetables were baked before they were stir-fried in some sort of gravy. They were gleaming with oil when they came out but that didn’t stop me from devouring half the plate. The potato chunks were like home fries, Chinese-style. I imagine that traditionally, small peppers would be used instead of bell peppers, but then the dish might have been too hot to handle.
The pan-fried pork dumplings were disappointing compared to the other dishes. One dumpling was clearly scorched, but most importantly, the filling was not savoury because a lot of the dumplings had leaked.
Then two large steamers arrived at our table. One was the vegetarian dumplings, stuffed with egg and chive (a combination usually reserved for fried dumplings, not steamed ones), the other were pork dumplings, stuffed with pork and pickled cabbage. Pickled cabbage is a popular ingredient in Northern China, and this restaurant made its own, so this was a real treat.
The egg and chive dumplings were not salty enough – a recurring theme with their dishes, it seemed. The pork and pickled cabbage dumplings were better, although I still appreciated the hand-made dumpling wrappers more than the filling.
We had red bean pancake for dessert (I use the term “dessert” loosely because Chinese meals do not formally distinguish between courses), which were so delicious. The pancake was just crispy enough, and the red bean paste melted against the heat of the dough into a smooth, luscious paste.
Rating: 
3636 Steeles Ave., Unit 112-113,
Markham, ON
Tel: 905-947-9880