Dumpling Empire South San Francisco [Review]

Located in South San Francisco, Dumpling Empire is a hole-in-the-wall sort of place where you go for home-style Chinese food with authentic flavors and not the ambiance.

It’s the most basic restaurant with tables, chairs, and dingy white walls. Everything is served on half container to-go boxes, to-go container lids, disposable cups and plates even for dining in.

Menu

Dumpling Empire offers Northern Chinese style dumplings; skewers; spicy and non-spicy pots; home-style dim sum; soups; fresh noodle bowls; fried noodles and fried rice; desserts and more.

Dumplings are made in the next room and the staff scurry around speaking loudly in Mandarin to each other;

What We Tried

Pork Soup Dumpling

Reasonable xiao long bao with a thin, dumpling skin and good juicy filling.

Wonton Soup

Shanghai style wontons with pork with bok choy. This was OK.

Lamb Dumpling with Chinese Vegetable

Thicker skin for this Northern Style dumpling. Meating, gamy lamb filling.

Shanghai Pan Fried Dumpling

A bit on the oilier side but still good. Nice crispy bottom. Piping hot, tender filling.

Overall Thoughts

The food was good for an a no-fills, unpretentious joint and the prices were reasonable. Decent enough for a quick meal.

You’re not missing much with the dine-in experience so I think the takeout or perhaps even buying some of their frozen varieties would be good too.

Dumpling Empire is located at 216 Cypress Ave South San Francisco, CA.

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