Dumpling = Delicious, Mandoo = Mashisoyo

I lived in South Korea for a year during the late 90s.  I gained about 15 pounds, in part because I found it depressing to live in a concrete city and my work was draining.  The other part due to an unexpected love affair with Korean cuisine. 

I don't understand why Americans love their Chinese food and sushi, but are almost entirely unfamiliar with Korean fare.  Before I moved to New York, I was occasionally able to find Korean restaurants, but they were almost always far away or were some watered-down version of the cuisine.  I am now in easy reach of an entire district of Korean food.  It's heavenly, especially on cold winter days.  Kimchi chigae, dolsot bibimbop and japchae are now in proximity whenever I have a craving.

When my two young cousins came through town this weekend and asked for an interesting place to eat, the choice was easy.  We met in K-Town (Koreatown) at Mandoo Bar, a sweet little place that specializes in dumplings of all sorts.  Their staff makes dumplings right at the entrance:

As you walk into the restaurant, you can see the various steps on the dumpling-making process.

Aren't they cute?

Later, the vat of oil (yummier than the steamed variation, a misfortune for the health conscious):

My cousins shared a plate of vegetarian dumplings.  I had some too, but first had steaming bowl of soon dubu chigae, or spicy tofu soup.

Yum.  If you eat this soup when you have a cold, it immediately goes away.  Now the dumplings:

The dumplings were unlike any I had seen (green for vegetarian?!) but they were delicious.

Aju mashisoyo!