Best North Dumpling Shop

Went to 5 different dumping shops with my friends in Flushing the other day. Best North Dumpling Shop was our overall 2^nd favorite. The pork and dill dumplings they serve here are outrageously good, I would definitely come back. They are listed as Pork & Fennel on the menu. You can get 10 or 15. The women who work here are all really nice and you can watch them make dumplings as you wait.

Yum! A great fantastic hidden treasure in Flushing! My friends and I made our way here after an initial stop to White Bear and finding it closed on Wednesdays. A quick Unilocal search led us into this literal hole in the wall, and so happy it did!
There are a number of dumpling and bun (bao, manapua, whatever you call it) choices, and not only are they tasty, but inexpensive too. We ended up splitting a 15 piece order of spicy wonton, four buns, «Konrean» cold noodle and a plate of pickled cabbage and garlic eggplant.
First of all, the four ladies who work at the food stall are awesome. There was a little bit of a language barrier when ordering, but pointing and saying the number of the item ended up working out fine :-P You can see them making the noodles and wontons fresh, adding the tasty lil’ garnishes on top as they plate your food.
Secondly, the taste. So good! The wontons were perfectly boiled and topped with spicy chili oil, pickles and green onions. The «Konrean» cold noodle soup is a great blend of cold ramen and naengmyeon. The buns/​baos were fluffy and steamed to perfection with really flavorful and juicy fillings. The pickles were a surprise too! A dollar for each side dish and they were a great accompaniment to the «main» dishes.
Lastly, the price. Come on! How can you go wrong with $ 1.00 buns? For $ 2.00 you could have a light meal or hearty snack with a bun and a side dish of pickles.
The only downside is the very limited seating if you want to eat there. Two long-​ish tables and a little side table with maybe eight seats total. Be prepared to sit with strangers if you want to eat in. I saw many people order take out, so that is probably a better bet if you have more than a couple of people in your group.
With an A rating from the Health Department (a rare find in Flushing) and great food, I will definitely be back!

WOW IM BLOWN AWAY. Background; asian with a chef/​former restauranteur dad upstate NY. Shout out Rachacha, Genesee beer and Dinosaur Bbq!
These ladies make buns better than my own papa. Im sorry dad! He most likely wont ever read this so I can be unpartially honest.
The dill/​fennel pork bun is so juicy and theres definitely a longlasting MMMMMM moment for me. Similar to a long orgasm but for my tastebuds this time. The bread on the outside is perfect depth which is not bready at all and thinner than other buns. Along with a more generous portion of filling, this $ 1.00 bun is a winner. Even though its a lil in the salty side, its still shamelessly good.
Two words; garlicky eggplants rock my world. I meant 5. My bad! Also shockingly for a buck for a lil solo dish of said scrumtiousness, this is a dish that packs the garlic punch and delivers the raw spicy boom boom pow just like I love. Perfection yet not if garlic is your foe. Which is cray in my opinion especially since raw garlic is so great healthwise.
Lovely ladies from Northern China hard at work. They were very sweet to me and great with their suggestions. Perhaps bringing someone who speaks mandarin couldnt hurt. Just sayin. But even without knowing chinese, just get one or two of everything to try. Buns and cold solo plates are only 1 dolla. SAY SHAA SHAA, JIE JEN at the end of your meal to say thanks, see you soon!

They place has that cred for being inside a shady mall.
They took frozen dumplings out of their freezer and boiled them for me on their household stove. :/​
No thanks. I want fresh ones.

These are by far the best dumplings in Flushing, top to bottom of the menu — vegetable, lamb, pork, and on and on.
But ordering in English is a very difficult and annoying proposition even by Flushing standards. The ladies who run the counter are nice enough, but don’t even know the numbers in English (even after years of running this shop), so you have to hold up fingers and hope for the best. Every time I try to get a plate of dumplings to eat in, or order fifty frozen ones at a budget price to take home, I end up having some hilarious misadventure and not getting what I asked for. And they’re not particularly nice about the misunderstandings, either — I usually end up paying for what they make and what I wanted and waiting around for stuff to cook twice, and/​or hoping someone else in line will help translate. It’s a pain for all their customers, even the ones who I’m holding up in line.
I’ll try Google Translate on the phone next time, I guess, instead of hoping that some kind passer-​by speaks enough English to tell them why I’m staring unhappily at the order they gave me instead of what I asked for. But I wish they’d just put up a menu you could point at, instead.

Try the pork with string bean bao for $ 1. It is unique and delicious.

Some of the better dumplings I’m aware of, since my favorite yanbian spot in the flushing mall moved to Corona. I liked the spicy wontons light skin over the thicker seafood mix. Nice ladies working there.

I’m a bit torn about the dumplings here. I’m not sure if I like them or not. They are interesting… since I’ve never eaten a dumpling with fennel seeds, but I’m not sure if I’m a fan.

Unilocal led me to another disappointment.
I got the pork cabbage bun $ 1 (not as big as the picture looked – size of a softball) the bread was a bit stale and dry. The inside was a bit bland, nothing that screamed wow for me.
Also got the dumpling $ 5 for 14pcs – again, another disappointment. I’ve made dumpling for the first time and it was better tasting than this store. The wrapper was overcooked and melted like paste when I tried to pick it up and eat it. The filling, you can taste is fresh but there was no flavor. The sauce on the table was the basic soy sauce and vinegar, they don’t even offer siracha. UGH!
If you go to the golden mall which is half a block from this place, you will find a dumpling place near the infamous xian — that’s where the real flavorful dumplings are and cost cheaper $ 3.50 for 12pcs and it comes with their own infused garlic vinegar sauce.

Hearts… smiley emoticons… kitten fur and panda bear faces.
These are the emotions I have for Best North and their small pockets of freshly made heavenly pork and fennel dumplings, pork and cabbage buns. It looks like fresh dill in the dumplings-​green and wonderful in contrast with the juicy pork.
Don’t get all overexcited before you go expecting a large restaurant. You’re in a hallway in a dumpy mall with a haphazard food stand and a few grungy tables.
But if I could eat this for my breakfast a few times a week I would be in heaven. It’s fresh. It’s cheap. It’s simple and it’s delicious. And I can’t find it or anything like it in a giant city like Dallas.
Ahhh…till next time I’m in Flushing…

I love dumplings. I’ve tried all the dumpling places in Flushing, such as Joe Shanghai, Nan Xiang, White Bear, Flushing Mall. This place is the winner with superior tastes, freshness, and prices. 12 dumplings for 3 dollars! Hot oil wontons with seaweed for $ 3.50.
They don’t speak much English here, but you can easily order by simply pointing at the pictures of their menu items in the wall.
Also they sell frozen dumplings, wontons and buns at even cheaper prices for you to enjoy at home.

I think this place takes the cake for the best dumplings in Flushing. I wasn’t impressed with the White Bear hype.
This place is off the beaten path. You’ll need to walk into a mini mall, down the hallway and find the stall where you’ll see 3 ladies working hard; one chopping up a mountain full of cabbage, one preparing the dumpling and one manning the boiling water stove. You can’t beat dumplings freshly made onsite!
Try the fennel & pork dumplings.10 pieces for 4.50. You won’t be disappointed. If I hadn’t done my own little dumpling tour around Flushing, I would have tried others!

Impeccable. Neck and neck with Tianjin Dumpling House for Best in the City

Totally worth the anxiety of not knowing if the counter-​person /​cook took your order.
Pork & fennel boiled dumplings weren’t appetizing at first, as we normally order pan-​fried dumplings. These are totally worth it.
Seating is limited to 4 people, 6 if you can use your imagination. Prepare to share. We didn’t get dirty looks or anything, just a casual smile here and there from passersby. We were the only (presumably) non-​Chinese in the building. Not anywhere you’d take someone on a date, but a fun place to impress a person not in the know.
The Chinese fellows who sat next to us ordered some type of soup and big, doughy buns. Maybe dumplings are for us «tourists» to Flushing’s Chinese District? If they are, I am thankful for their thoughtful concession!

So this review is solely for the lamb dumplings we ordered. First of all, what were we thinking? We wanted to try something new and we had never seen lamb dumplings anywhere else… BAD idea. They were well… exactly what you would expect of lamb dumplings… kind of a weird mixture. Definitely not something I would try again.
However, we will definitely be back in the future to try some of the other more. normal flavors!

$ 3.75 for 10 delicious pork & fennel dumplings? Frugal living couldn’t be any better.
The store is located inside the Friendship Shopping Plaza on the right hand side. There are a couple of chairs to sit down but make no mistakes, this place is the definition of a hole in the wall. I’ve never had pork & fennel dumplings before and since fennel has such a strong flavor, I wasn’t sure how these dumplings would turn out but they certainly grew on me with every bite. The fennel is prominent but not overpowering and the skin is the perfect thickness. Overall, I would say they managed to balance the flavors well. Addition of chili oil is a must.
They also had mutton dumplings on their menu which we were eyeing but since we had quite a few stops on our dumpling crawl, we limited ourselves to one type. The other thing that I noticed was the size of their buns. They were HUUUGE!
P. S. No valet parking available.

We got the pork and chive dumplings. Like every other dumpling place, everything is made from scratch. They were juicy and meaty. The skin to filling ratio was appropriate. It was good but nothing that put them better than the surrounding dumpling shops. I will probably be back to try the fennel one, they ran out the day I was there. We also got the red bean sweet bun… it’s basically a bun with granulated sugar and red bean. We weren’t a fan.

No disrespect to nan Xiang and joe’s shanghai. This mom and pop store has one of the most delicious dumpling. They also serve pork, and vegetable buns (huge one). Two of them will fill you up. Frozen ones are available to buy and you can boil them home for quick lunch or dinner.
Place is located right on Main Street. Small little place but it is a hidden gem (authentic). You can always tell how authentic a place is by looking at the people that eat there. They are the ones that know the authenticity of the food.
Nan Xiang and Joe’s shanghai are just ok place that are just lucky. They just get a big exposure by some big newspapers articles labeled them as the best dumplings even though it is just average.

Warning: If you don’t speak Chinese, stay away from this place.
The food here is actually decent, not bad at all. Some of you probably thinking, why do we give one star rating for this place?
There were two ladies who work behind the counter & both don’t understand English at all. One of the lady was okay, she seems nice, trying to understand what we were trying to order but the other one has bad attitude! We ordered the spicy wonton & she gave us just plain wonton soup. We explained to her about how she gave us the wrong order & she gave us attitude, real bad attitude. We told her that we ordered a spicy wonton, not just a plain wonton soup, then she raised her voice, telling us to just add a hot sauce, WTF??? We were so frustrated dealing with her. After debating with her for few minutes, she finally get it after we pointed the food that we ordered on the menu (for the 3^rd or 4^th times). By that time, we were already frustrated, not really in the mood to eat anymore.
Horrible customer service! Very rude!
We definitely won’t go back to this place…

Located inside the Friendship Shopping Plaza, which is actually just a cramped walkway with a media shop up front and several food places all the way to the back. Dumpling King or Best Northern is located in the middle; look for their sign hanging from the ceiling above the walkway. They have a few tables across their stand. The whole vibe is dumpy and probably the kind of place you’d take a few steps in, feel like you walked into the bad side of town, and scurry back out. But if you’re adventurous, you’ll keep going b/​c you know the best things are often hidden in dumps like these.
They specialize in northern-​style dumplings, and have a fairly large selection of fillings to choose from. Pork and fennel intrigued me, but our group jointly went for mutton. Personally, I loved the dumplings. Well-​made dumplings are a dime a dozen in Flushing, and these were well-​made, but the mutton filling was also delicious: tender, soft, and gamy. Ended up too gamy for some in my group so your mileage may vary.
They have some cold items available but they were sold out on the eggplant we wanted. We saw someone else getting tea eggs so we picked up a few to try. These were not flavorful enough, needed more time soaking in flavors.