The best dumpling is a tasty dumpling

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Fried Korean dumplings served with two sauces.

Who doesn't like Korean dumplings or mandoo?

They're filled with beef, shrimp or vegetables -- sometimes in combination -- and they're a tasty appetizer for a Korean restaurant meal. 

But if you live in North Jersey, you can buy these wonderful dumplings at Best Dumplings in downtown Englewood, the successor to Mandoo Inc., which opened about 16 years ago down a pothole-filled street in the city's industrial section. 

They are fully cooked, so we steam them from frozen for 10 to 15 minutes and serve them with soy sauce or a dumpling sauce you can get at any Korean or Japanese supermarket. Almost any sauce that contains soy sauce will do or you can choose a spicy Korean red-pepper sauce or paste. 

They also can be pan fried or deep fried or added to soup.

We use a large, metal steamer, but line it with a paper towel to prevent the dumplings from sticking. When they are done, you can lift the paper towel and dumplings out of the steamer and put them on a plate for serving.

I stopped at Best Dumplings on Tuesday, when I had to fill a prescription at the ShopRite in Englewood, and learned a few things. 

I wanted non-meat dumplings, but a young woman who works there said the freezer bags labeled "kimchi" and "leek" contain dumplings that are made with a little beef. 

She pointed to a piece of paper on the wall with the ingredients of each dumpling sold there. She said over the phone today none of the dumplings contain pork.

I bought three freezer bags of dumplings -- vegetable, shrimp with broccoli and shrimp with vegetable. Each bag contains at least four dozen 3-inch-long dumplings. My bill came to $41 or about 28 cents for each dumpling. 

Best Dumplings, 16 Humphrey St., Englewood; 201-568-9337.

Homung Nangmyun Restaurant in Closter

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Koreans eat traditional buckwheat noodles in cold broth year-round, but I wanted something a bit warmer when I stopped for lunch today at Homung Nangmyun in Closter. 

Despite the chill outside, the small restaurant in Closter Commons shopping center filled up quickly. This past summer, when I had the noodles in a hot and spicy cold house sauce,  I had to wait 15 minutes for a shared table. (Photo: Generic nangmyun with beef.)

Each table holds a thermos of hot, milky beef-bone broth and a cup. You are supposed to down a couple of cups to warm up your stomach against the shock of the cold noodles. I drank some anyway and really enjoyed it, even though I planned to order steamed mandoo, or Korean dumplings ($7.95).

In addition to the small salad the waitress gave me when I arrived, my side dishes were broad ribbons of  radish kimchi and stewed potatoes. I also got hot tea and, when I asked, a small dish of cabbage kimchi. Since the dish I ordered was considered an appetizer, I didn't get the full number of side dishes served to other customers.

The 10 shrimp and vegetable dumplings, which came in a steamer basket, were beautifully made, plump and delicious. The restaurant serves several other hot dishes, including short ribs and soft-tofu stew with seafood.

Homung Nangmyun,570 Piermont Road, Closter,
in Closter Commons Shopping Center; 
201-750-1010. Closed Wednesdays.

At Chung Dam Dong Restaurant

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Broad Avenue is the main street in Palisades Park, home to dozens of Korean restaurants and coffee shops.

If you love to see your meal cooked on the table at a Korean restaurant and if you're a big fan of octopus and squid in a seriously spicy sauce, head over to Chung Dam Dong in Palisades Park.


We had dinner there last night after negotiating with the waitress and the kitchen over what we wanted in our seafood stir fry instead of those invertebrates, which I love but which my wife and son abhor. 


The meal came with eight panchan, or side dishes, including a delightful salad of greens, two kinds of terrific kimchi, stewed radish and fish, steamed egg, and potato salad with mayo and raisins. Another was scallion, green pepper, carrot and Spam on a toothpick, battered and fried.


So we agreed on pork and shell- and head-on shrimp in our stir fry, which was cooked with vegetables and a half-dozen mussels in the kitchen and brought to our table in a wok that was placed over a gas grill to keep it bubbling. 


The mussels never opened, so I didn't eat them. A stone bowl of coarse, bland bean curd -- or was it tofu? -- was the perfect counterpoint to this spicy dish.


After we put a serious dent in the entree and several dishes of salad and kimchi, which were replenished when empty, the waitress brought out fresh bean sprouts and a medium-size bowl of steamed white rice and dumped them into the wok, stirring them into the remaining sauce and flattening the rice against the bottom and sides of the blackened wok -- for sort of a Korean paella. We tried, but couldn't finish the rice.


I don't know the name of this entree, but you can find it on the menu by its lofty price -- $42.99. The waitress told us it served only two and urged us to order soup, in addition to the fried vegetable dumplings we wanted ($11.99). We declined. 


This is one restaurant where the quality of the "free side dishes" make some of the pricier entrees palatable. The only beer available is Coors Light, and a small bottle of soju is about $12.


Chung Dam Dong also offers Korean barbecue, but I didn't pay too much attention to those selections, because we have long ago decided to buy our own free-range, grass-fed Australian beef and prepare barbecue at home, after consuming so much "mystery meat" at restaurants.


You'll find this second-floor restaurant in the same building on Broad Avenue that houses So Gong Dong, our favorite soft-tofu place. At the top of the stairs, you turn right for tofu stews, left for spicy stir fries and great side dishes.


Chung Dam Dong Restaurant, 118 Broad Ave.,
Palisades Park, 201-313-8900. No Web site.