Note: It seems that some older online listings for this fine shop list its name as New Dumpling Town, while newer listings, including this one, list the name as per the large sign in front of the shop, which distinctly reads "Bo Hai Dumpling Town".
I love Chinese dumplings, whether steamed or fried, but I am also very sensitive to MSG (foods containing significant amounts of MSG give me headaches), and so I am always on the lookout for small traditional Chinese dumpling shops when I am in Manhattan, since many of them tend to use little or no MSG in their dumplings.
The aforementioned small traditional Chinese dumpling shops can particularly be found in lower SoHo, LES (lower East Side) and Chinatown, and so, whenever I am staying in the area, I always keep an eye out for small hole-in-the-wall type traditional dumpling shops, because, as mentioned earlier, I know from experience that a good percentage of these small traditional shops often tend to use very little or no MSG in making their dumplings (the third-grade nun who taught me grammar and coherent writing skills in elementary school just turned over in her grave because part of this sentence essentially repeated what I had already written earlier... you see, Sister Demonic Moebius HATED repetition in prose...).
And so it happened that I stumbled upon Bo Hai Dumpling Town on E. Broadway in early 2013 during one of my stays in lower Manhattan. Their dumplings are insanely inexpensive, and they seem to use very little MSG in their dumplings. I have only eaten the dumplings from this shop. If my memory serves me correctly, they do offer a few other food items (mainly buns with various fillings, as I recall, and I think I once saw them filling a take-out container with cold noodles with sesame sauce; it looked delicious...!), but I cannot comment on them because I have never eaten anything other than the dumplings ("My name is Vinny, and I am addicted to Chinese dumplings.").
Their dumplings are great, and I usually buy a large order of them to go, and, after I have eaten my fill for the current meal at hand back in my hotel room, I lovingly store the remainder in the small fridge in my room; they (that is, the dumplings, not the fridge...) always seem to disappear within a day or two!
Incidentally, after I have bought a bunch of dumplings at the shop, I usually stop by one of the numerous small Asian grocery shops in the area and pick up a small bottle of fermented soy sauce (none of the fake stuff for me) or a small bottle of fish sauce (also fermented), or both, to use as dipping sauces when I am eating the dumplings back in my hotel room.
By the way, the doorway to this little shop is located in the lower beneath-the-sidewalk level at 217 E. Broadway in LES, and the building in which this shop is located, along with the large Bo Hai Dumpling Town sign (which majestically reigns just above sidewalk level) and also the exteriors of some of the nearby buildings, are all regularly seen in the new (mid-2015) sci-fi/hacker/drama TV show called Mr. Robot, because in the show, the show's protagonist, Elliott, lives in a studio apartment in the building at 217 E. Broadway.
Thus, almost every episode of the show features one or more shots of Elliott and/or his friends sitting or standing on or near the stairs leading to the door of his apartment building; this is the set of stairs located just to the left of the Bo Hai Dumpling Town sign when you are looking at the building from the street. So, this little part of the block has gained a bit of fame in TV land because of the TV show, and the Bo Hai Dumpling Town sign, in particular, is seen in most episodes of the show!
Late note: I have not visited this shop since late 2013, and I have heard some reports that the shop was closed, and shuttered, for a while in early 2014. However, I have seen evidence that it was open again by late 2014. I will be in the LES area shortly, and while there, I will check out the shop to see if it is still open, and I will mark the shop as closed on its Yelp page if it is still closed.
Note as of Aug. 24, 2015: Stayed in the Lower East Side neighborhood recently, and visited the location several times and it's always shuttered during biz hours. The shop appears to now be permanently CLOSED. On one of my visits, I brought along my fotog friend Brenda, and we took turns doing foto shoots of each other sitting on the top steps to the left of the shop, a la Elliot in Mr. Robot, sitting and brooding on the steps! read more
