The lamb and green squash dumplings at Helen You’s Tianjin Dumpling House were a revelation when I first tasted them years ago at Flushing’s Golden Mall. The tiny packages filled with lamb emit a puff of ovine aroma and burst with juices when bitten into. They remain a feature of my food tour to this day. Three years ago she opened Dumpling Galaxy, a sit-down restaurant. While I love the variety it offers—100 kinds of dumplings—sometimes, really most of the time, I prefer the hawker stand.
When I heard You was offering off menu lamb soup dumplings at Dumpling Galaxy, I forgot all about my preference for the hawker stand and hightailed it over to the restaurant. After all I am as big a fan of lamb as I am of soup dumplings. To the best of my knowledge she’s the only one in New York City offering yang rou xiao long bao.
Dumpling Galaxy’s lamb xiao long bao are petite compared to some others out there, but boy are they packed with flavor. I could easily have polished off two orders, but I wanted to try something from the restaurant’s Chinese New Year’s menu, Chinese money dumplings or jinqian jiaozi.
These can be ordered with any filling, so I decided to double down on lamb. This time I opted for pickled mustard greens, which cut through the richness of the lamb very nicely. The lacy sheet of dough joining the quartet of dumplings makes for a festive presentation and fun eating too.
Dumpling Galaxy, 42-35 Main St., Flushing, 718-461-0808