MORE THAN A DUMPLING HOUSE
Restaurant’s menu a daily surprise
It’s parka season and what’s more warming than grandma food? On some days, you can find grandma dumplings at Ugly Dumpling. When co-owner/sommelier Van Doren Chan’s grandmother “kind of volunteered” to make dumplings, there was only one answer: yes! So not always, but sometimes, the daily dumplings are hers. A wonderful thing if you don’t have your own grandma.
And here’s another emotive dish on the menu: the restaurant’ s staff or family meal, usually a simple rice or noodle bowl plied with tasty stuff, is the fuel before service; chef makes extra and puts it on the chalkboard menu along with the dumpling of the day. Nice to feel included, right?
Ugly Dumpling opened in October and I sped there upon returning from a month abroad. I was hard up for Vancouver food. Bull’s eye! Chef and co-owner Darren Gee has cooked at Farmer’s Apprentice, Kinome (now shuttered) and Le Crocodile. Chan has worked at Le Crocodile, Hawksworth, Salt Tasting Room and Meyer Family Vineyard. Ugly Dumpling is casual, but takes her drink list seriously, providing lots of information on the wine and sake selections.
The pair took the space vacated by Merchant’s Workshop and made some cosmetic changes. I found the female servers super charming and efficient to the point where I wondered if some were invested in the business. They aren’t.
Gee puts emphasis on great suppliers to give dishes liftoff and he has Kinome’s Ryoma Matarai side kicking in the kitchen for more liftoff. At Kinome, Matarai was making some of the best Japanese food in Vancouver, but he’ll be leaving for Japan next June. And if there are noodles on the menu at Ugly Dumpling, lunge! Matarai’s noodle-making skills are notable.
“Our food has a lot of Japanese influence because he’s the other half, but, really, it’s all over the place, whatever we feel like making,” said Gee.
Just to be clear, Gee doesn’t think dumplings are ugly at all. “It might be ugly, but I can still love it as long as it tastes great. It’s just a fun name.” He’ll only have one dumpling on the menu daily. “I don’t want to be a dumpling house.” It might be pan fried or steamed. It might even be a perogy.
When I visited, it was ag y oz alike variety filled with pork and shiitake mushrooms accompanied by a soy and Chinese vinegar dip ($9). The wrapper had a nice chew and the filling had a gingery perk.
The staff meal dish was a rice bowl with braised pork belly, kale and egg ($18). Break the onsen egg yolk and it mingles with the sauce from the pork belly and sautéed onions. It was delicious, except the too-chewy pork belly might have needed a longer braise. When Gee makes the staff meals, it’s “whatever I want to eat that day. I haven’t repeated anything yet.”
Housemade pickles ($6) punctuated our meal and added extra umami. There’s usually an assortment of three different Asian pickles.
A dish of mushrooms, including chanterelles, shimeji, oyster, and mochi ($15) captured autumn earthiness. Four pieces of mochi were grilled and softened in the mushroom broth.
We tried both desserts on offer: pear and quince jelly in coconut milk and a kabocha pudding with salted plum caramel sauce and cocoa nibs. The first seemed like a haphazard soup whereas the second was a good use of kabocha and the salted plum, thankfully, left the heavy work to the caramel.
If you don’t want to think too hard, there are omakase options — $45 for seven courses or $60 for 10. If going that route, best call ahead so the chances of off-menu items, like off-cut dishes, are better.