dough zone dumpling house 麵貼面

goodchinesefood chain. we went to the redmond one on friday eve and had a 20 minute wait for 5 people. there are a lot of vegetarian options and the service is fast. i would recommend the dumplings and beans.

chinese restaurants in america (except those in l.a, new york and san francisco) oftentimes try to serve everything on their menu, from stir-fries to hot-pots, from rice dishes to dumplings and noodles. unless you know the chef’s specialty before hand and order accordingly, you are likely to be disappointed…that is, if authentic chinese is what your are after.

i'm going to start off by saying i'm probably a little biased because my mom makes amazingchinesefood. this place was actually pretty good compared to my mom's cooking though. i had the beef roll which was good but pretty one dimensional. the shrimp and pork steamed dumplings were delicious, and i sampled the pig's feet noodles and thought they were really flavorful. the red bean tofu was a little weird - the tofu was bland but the red beans were way too sweet.
the ambience is nice and it's a lot cleaner than a lot ofchineserestaurants. the portions were pretty small so we ended up ordering more after we got our food. overall a good experience.

green onion pancakes? check.chinesedoughnuts? fresh-made noodles? check. biscuits and “burgers”? check. there’s even shengjian bao (here called jian buns), making dough zone about the only place in the area to find the pan-fried relative of xiao long bao. so what’s the verdict on quality? pretty good, overall. the xiao long bao ($8.50 for 10) are about the c

go for the dumplings. it's great to finally start to see some more diversechineserestaurants opening up in the seattle area. at least among thechinesecommunity, dough zone has created a bit of a buzz as din tai fung now has a local competitor. love that!

have their many varieties of dumplings. their xiao long bao (xlb) is one of the best in the area (din tai fung is the other place i like) and is a welcome addition. their skin is made very well -- not too thick -- and the soup quantity is great. it's not quite to the standard set in richmond/vancouver, but unfortunately nothing in seattle is yet. their many boiled and pan-fried dumplings were also very good. we had the steamed pork and shrimp dumplings (expensive, but unique with a whole shrimp (tail included) in each dumpling), steamed pork dumplings (outstanding -- gobbled up by my kids) and potstickers (good, but i'd stick with the steamed and boiled ones).

we had a scallion pancake which was quite nice -- light, crispy and appropriately delicate. we also had a bowl of beef noodle soup which was really disappointing. the noodles were not very good, the broth was lacking and the beef brisket was not in the typical chunks. i don't plan to have noodles there again.

overall, i'm excited that dough zone is here and will be back to try more things (other than the noodles).