Blnd Tger Dumplings
pint of Guinness. The Sunday roast is also a warm embrace of the customer, with a rotating menu that, at $16, is one of the best deals in town. 251 East Georgia St. instagram.com/blndtgerdumplings
Directly across the street from the Heather is this new dumpling spot that seems to be cut from a different cloth. I would say it’s a dumpling spot and speakeasy... but shhhh, the speakeasy is a secret. The menu is a panoply of Chinese cuisines, with six different dumpling offerings. And like the other spots here, chef Phong Vo is trying to ingratiate himself to his new surroundings by using a selection of local purveyors—like nearby Gar-lok—in his creations. Sadly, there are more misses than hits here: the zhong, with a snappy jolt of Szechuan oil, are excellent, but the bison momos suffer from a lack of juiciness in the meat and a problematically thick skin that affects all the offering. The single malt XLB had no soup at all, let alone any discernible single malt taste (and in this town, a nod to the Dumpling King might be in order for such a recipe). None of this is damning—it’s just a bit odd to sell only-okay dumplings for $9/3 when so many of your immediate neighbours, like Kam Wai and Sun Fresh, are selling more traditional (and, in part, better) takes for $4.50. Ah, but here’s the rub—and promise not to tell anyone. If you order dumpling #7, the freezer door behind the counter opens and you’re ushered into an uber-luxe, designed-by-afancy-London-firm spot called Laowai. A word on that: early on, a friend mentioned they were a bit iffy on the name, which is a Chinese slang word for foreigner that, while generally considered a bit more mild than gweilo, is by no means a compliment. My guess is that the co-owner—Brit ex-pat Lewis Hart—was trying to poke fun at himself for opening a dumpling spot in Chinatown, but the name comes off as a bit tone-deaf to me. There’s reams of debate online about whether the term is offensive or not, but there’s just something that feels off about it, in this neighbourhood, at this time, and in particular for a secret room that opens only to those in the know. Sadly, I can’t comment on the back room: when I asked the counterman about it, he insisted there’s no backroom and that behind the door is where they keep the frozen dumplings. I was tempted to ask, “You freeze the dumplings?” as it would explain a lot, but I demurred and instead gave the guy a head tilt and a “c’mon, man” look. I suppose I should have just played along and ordered dumpling #7, and then the door would have opened and I would have been able to luxuriate in the fancy digs evoking 1930s Shanghai and have a cocktail made by the very talented Alex Black, but I was just not in the mood to play the secret password game. To his credit, I suppose, he didn’t budge, and to my discredit, nor did I. I had just spent the past few days in places where every door was wide open to everyone—aunties and hipsters, millennials and octogenarians—and if it took a password to get past this door I was happy to keep walking.