A Day at the Lower East Side Dumpling Festival.. A...

$A Day at the Lower East Side Dumpling Festival.. A Tale of Woe What a disaster! So the rain and chilliness certainly didn’t help matters, but still.. ugh. This was nothing like I expected. Gates opened at noon. I think I got there around 1:30, met by $5-per-dumpling-sample tickets and throngs of umbrella-wielding dumpling-eating hopefuls. Now, $5 per 2 dumplings might not seem THAT ridiculous, but I guess I was just thinking in comparison to many restaurants in the city where you get piles of the little guys for that much. But the money went to the Food Bank of NYC, so, fine. I sprung for 3 tickets because I was looking forward to gettin’ my dumpling on.. At this point I still expected to be swimming through veritable seas of them, dumplings as far as the eye can see! This was not the case. I thought there would be hundreds (or at least dozens) of carts ‘n’ vendors, representing the finest the city (and the world!) has to offer. Instead, there were NINE, count ‘em, NINE “vendors” peddling “dumplings” to the throngs of hungry dumpling enthusiasts. Because of this, the lines were literally hours long - sometimes so long that folks in the back didn’t get the word from up front that there weren’t any dumplings left at all. The only line I did manage to make all the way through unthwarted was that for the Indian idli. “Finally,” I thought, “all the strife, the pain, will be rewarded.” How wrong I was. Idli are described on Wikipedia as a cake of black lentils and rice. Dumpling? I think not! Aside from that infraction, I’m sure these can be good.. savory, even. But this was not. Flavorless and sandy in texture, topped with a bland, runny sauce.. In the words of a fellow attendee, “I thought this was the dumpling festival, not the dry crappy piece of bread festival.” The next line I decided to brave was for the Mexican tamale (also rather toeing the line of a dumpling proper). I made it almost to the front when rumors started that they were out of tamales! We sent a messenger, and sure enough, the reports were true. We were told we could get ‘priority positioning’ in line from someone authoritatively wielding a pen, but we were told it would be at least 20 minutes more. At this point I gave up, sold my remaining tickets to people at the front door, and went to Vanessa’s where I got 4 delicious chive and pork dumplings for a dollar, with a duck-filled sesame pancake for $2.50. My apologies for the rant, but I really had high hopes for this.. Such potential for greatness. But this event sucked ass. Not to mention the MC/host lady who came from Florida was SO loud and annoying it just made you wish you could wait in line in total silence. Anyway. THUMBS DOWN to the crapling festival! The eating competition was sort of alright, but the contestants were the smart ones - eating as many dumplings as they wanted for free! Some only had 8 or so, which I think meant they were just exploiting the system. Oh well. Thankfully there’s Vanessa’s.$

A Day at the Lower East Side Dumpling Festival.. A Tale of Woe

What a disaster! So the rain and chilliness certainly didn’t help matters, but still.. ugh. This was nothing like I expected. Gates opened at noon. I think I got there around 1:30, met by $5-per-dumpling-sample tickets and throngs of umbrella-wielding dumpling-eating hopefuls. Now, $5 per 2 dumplings might not seem THAT ridiculous, but I guess I was just thinking in comparison to many restaurants in the city where you get piles of the little guys for that much. But the money went to the Food Bank of NYC, so, fine. I sprung for 3 tickets because I was looking forward to gettin’ my dumpling on.. At this point I still expected to be swimming through veritable seas of them, dumplings as far as the eye can see! This was not the case.

I thought there would be hundreds (or at least dozens) of carts ‘n’ vendors, representing the finest the city (and the world!) has to offer. Instead, there were NINE, count ‘em, NINE “vendors” peddling “dumplings” to the throngs of hungry dumpling enthusiasts. Because of this, the lines were literally hours long - sometimes so long that folks in the back didn’t get the word from up front that there weren’t any dumplings left at all.

The only line I did manage to make all the way through unthwarted was that for the Indian idli. “Finally,” I thought, “all the strife, the pain, will be rewarded.” How wrong I was. Idli are described on Wikipedia as a cake of black lentils and rice. Dumpling? I think not! Aside from that infraction, I’m sure these can be good.. savory, even. But this was not. Flavorless and sandy in texture, topped with a bland, runny sauce.. In the words of a fellow attendee, “I thought this was the dumpling festival, not the dry crappy piece of bread festival.”

The next line I decided to brave was for the Mexican tamale (also rather toeing the line of a dumpling proper). I made it almost to the front when rumors started that they were out of tamales! We sent a messenger, and sure enough, the reports were true. We were told we could get ‘priority positioning’ in line from someone authoritatively wielding a pen, but we were told it would be at least 20 minutes more. At this point I gave up, sold my remaining tickets to people at the front door, and went to Vanessa’s where I got 4 delicious chive and pork dumplings for a dollar, with a duck-filled sesame pancake for $2.50.

My apologies for the rant, but I really had high hopes for this.. Such potential for greatness. But this event sucked ass. Not to mention the MC/host lady who came from Florida was SO loud and annoying it just made you wish you could wait in line in total silence. Anyway. THUMBS DOWN to the crapling festival! The eating competition was sort of alright, but the contestants were the smart ones - eating as many dumplings as they wanted for free! Some only had 8 or so, which I think meant they were just exploiting the system. Oh well. Thankfully there’s Vanessa’s.

3PM, Oct 26 2009

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