What We Talk About When We Talk About Dumplings by John Lorinc

Author:John Lorinc
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Coach House Books

Alas, at some point in the mid-1980s, the Hong Kong closed. The owners opened a restaurant-style place around the corner, just off Dundas, but the perfectly fresh dumplings were no more. Soon afterwards that restaurant closed, too.

There was another small, family-run dumpling spot near downtown, even more homemade in feel, which only partly filled the gap left when the Hong Kong closed. At the Ko family bakery, on Baldwin Street about ten minutes west, you could order the basics: har gao and siu mai, as well as a few other dumplings, along with baozi and custard tarts, to eat at a small table inside or outside. The bakery was an inexpensive, reliable go-to place for students and others in the area until it too closed, some years ago.

Times change. There are losses, but also gains. In the last twenty-plus years, other dumpling places, such as Yummy Yummy Dumplings and Mother’s Dumplings, have sprung up in downtown Toronto and elsewhere. They’re a great addition to the dumpling scene and fill an important niche. They make hearty northern-style dumplings – wheat-flour wrappers filled with ground pork (or other meat) flavoured with aromatics – rather like the jiaozi Cassandra and I experimented with long ago. The dumplings are served boiled, steamed, or fried, or sold by the dozen, frozen, to be cooked at home. An intensely flavoured dipping sauce of black vinegar with soy sauce, with an optional touch of chili oil, is the usual complement.

For a long time now, my favourite local source for southern Chinese-style dumplings has been the array of dim sum offerings at Sky Dragon, on the top floor of Dragon City, at Dundas and Spadina. It’s a large space, but still welcoming and lively. Until recently the carts at Sky Dragon were wheeled around by servers who had been there for years. They’d patiently lift the lids off the steamers on their carts to show you the dumplings and other treats on offer, in case you hadn’t understood the names they’d called out as they approached. These days instead you choose from an illustrated menu and the dishes come hot and fresh to the table.

I feel so lucky to have entered the world of dumplings via the magic door of the Hong Kong Bakery. That world is going strong in Toronto and still evolving. Dumplings shaped by hand, carefully steamed or fried, picked up one at a time with chopsticks, lifted to the mouth, then eaten with pleasure, are being made and enjoyed all over the city and across the Greater Toronto Area. When I think back to that first visit to the Hong Kong, and then reflect on the hundreds of dumplings I’ve eaten since, I picture the deft hands, the various fillings, the fine rice- or wheat- or tapioca-flour wrappers, the choices of dipping sauces, and I marvel at the landscape of delicious possibilities unfolding in my mind’s eye. Respect!

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