As soon as all of my cousins were free on Friday when we got to MD, we all got together to eat. (I would say, “what else?!” except of course there’s always card playing, cross-eye inducing amounts of card playing.) CT suggested China Bistro (755 Hungerford Dr 301.294.0808), a little hole in the wall restaurant in a little strip mall in Rockville. In Chinese, the name is 媽媽水餃 or Mama Dumpling, which basically tells you all you need to know about what to order (although the small plates and bubble tea are supposed to be good, we didn’t try any this trip). We were all really hungry, and the menu offered 10% off of 10 or more orders of dumplings, so of course we ordered 10 orders. And with 12 dumplings per order, that’s 120 dumplings! For seven people!!! Well we didn’t quite finish, but we ate a lot of dumplings.
Actually, CT took this photo cos after the food came I was too focused on eating. All the dumplings are hand made, including the wrapper, so it took a while to get all of our orders but really, the table couldn’t have fit 120 dumplings all at once anyway. As we finished some plates they’d replace them with more. Also, I think they offer pan fried and steamed/boiled versions of all of their dumplings. We got two plates of the pork and chive, one pan fried and one boiled, and we all liked the boiled better.
Everyone has different fave dumplings, so I can’t say what to order — although we all liked the pumpkin and pork special, I think some of CT’s friends didn’t when they tried it, and I thought the dill and pork were really good, but Kay didn’t like them at all. They also have a “vegetable” dumpling which we didn’t try, but we did try the “triple vegetarian” dumplings — we thought there were maybe eggs in them — not sure, just something to double check if you have dietary restrictions — or don’t bother cos we didn’t like them anyways. My fave vegetarian dumpling/pot sticker/gyoza type thing is still the vegetarian gyoza from Cha-Ya in San Francisco. But overall, I thought China Bistro was great! If I’m ever jonesing for dumplings in the DC area, this would be the place for sure. Actually I did actually kinda feel like some tonight for dinner, so I dunno one of these weekends we’ll have to make some, and they’ll be good (if I do say so myself), but in a different way.
Sometimes I think the DC metropolitan area has better Chinese food — like the Bay Area doesn’t have too many good places at all! Except whenever I voice this opinion, people think I’m nuts. But then I remember that we don’t really have parents and family telling us where to go, and taking us there to boot, so… it’s probably our own fault. :D
