Eating like there's no tomorrow

This weekend we went on a self guided dumpling tour of Chinatown and let me tell you it was highly successful!
I have been listening to the splendid table and it makes me want to eat everything. It does not help that I listen to it on my 5:30 am bike ride to work when its all I can do to not eat my own bike.
So, this weekend I made an itinerary and we hit up 3 dumpling places all within close proximity to each other. All the places had gotten critics pick in the NY Times so we had a good starting point.
Our tour began at Dumpling House (118 Eldridge St.) it was very busy as it went at prime eating time, 1:30 on a Saturday. I got an amazing Taro bubble tea and we had a selection of veg and chicken steamed dumplings. The dough of chicken dumplings seemed to have taro root in it (Jen thought this was case)which made the dumplings a bit flowery and sweet. It was good, but did a bit bland without the dipping sauce.
Next we headed down the street to Prosperity Dumpling a little store front that made Dumpling house feel like a palace. Luckily we were not going there for the ambiance and let me tell you I would stand on a street corner having hot dumpling juice dripping down my chin any day if it were from Prosperity. The dumplings were so good the dipping sauce seemed like an after thought and I am still have fantasies about sesame flat break filled with onions and carrots.
My only wish was that the veggie dumplings were fried the way the pork ones were. I could not try the pork (I know those are what real dumplings have in them) but I really wanted to based on how they looked.
We rolled to the last dumpling shop Fried Dumpling and let me tell you it accomplished what Prosperity lacked. The veggie dumplings were fried and amazing...I even bought a bag of 30 frozen for the road. The language barrier was pretty comical though and the prices were all wrong, but after much yelling and arm flailing we figured it out.
To top off our dumpling adventure we went to Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. I got the green tea sugar free ice cream which was super creamy and tasted as though it was sweetened with something a bit less cancer causing than the usual fair. I tried a taste of the sesame peanut which nearly caused me to die on the spot.

This was the most successful cheap eats tour ever. There were, of course, other dumpling places that were on my list, but out of the way enough that it would have made our tour too long and we would probably have had to roll home more than we did.

Next mission: Go to the end of the 7 train and hit up "the best Thai in NY" Sripraphai.