*Sigh...* This wasn't the start of my birthday weekend that I was hoping for. Since moving to the…read moreTowson area about six months ago, I've been trying to find a good Chinese restaurant that was closer to me.
Unfortunately, after visiting Ding How...I'm still looking. I should've paid attention to the three star rating, but I didn't. The food looked kind of decent and seeing that the restaurant had a parking lot was actually a plus for me (restaurants with street parking stress me out).
Anyhoo, I looked through the menu for some tasty items to try. I had a taste for shrimp egg foo young (with fried rice- remember this), and some kind of steamed dumplings. This restaurant had something called Wasabi Shumai Dumplings. The paper menu states that they are $8.95. Online, it says that they are $9.95. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the online prices are most up to date. I had some delicious dumplings at other restaurants before, and hoped that these would be tasty. Spoiler alert...they most definitely were NOT!
I called my order and took the 15 minute drive to the location. When I arrived, I was greeted by a nice woman that I assumed took my phone order. She explained to me that she had to give me half spicy dumplings and half regular. I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but I assumed that they ran out of one or the other and had to make some provisions to the appetizer. She apologized and said she should have called me to see if it was okay. Honestly, that would've been appreciated, but I never had these dumplings before, so I didn't know what to expect. My total came to $27.45 for dumplings and shrimp egg foo young with fried rice. Now, most places don't charge extra for fried rice and if they do, it's for a dollar. This place charged me four dollars extra for fried rice. Going against my gut, I accepted the extra charge. With a five dollar tip (which I immediately regretted), my total came up to $32.45. I honestly should've omitted the tip after I was told that there was a change to the appetizer without me being notified. However, as a consumer, I try my best to tip appropriately.
Anyways, after making my way home, I started taking everything out of the bag. I took the dumplings out first. The container felt a bit light. Nothing prepared me for what I saw. I stared down at the most pitiful appetizer I've probably ever seen. Six small, sad, MEASLY dumplings scattered over a lifeless bed of what looked like white cabbage. Some type of brown sauce carelessly splashed over the dumplings made everything look even worse. I was immediately irritated, thinking that I should've chosen an egg roll or something less offensive. Ten dollars for an appetizer that could've, no SHOULD'VE been for free. I tasted one, and was just so extremely underwhelmed. It tasted like mush. It was supposed to be shrimp and pork. All I could taste was a heavy flavor of scallions. The "spicy" dumplings had chunks of ginger, which was overpowering and overall just not good.
The shrimp egg foo young was honestly pretty good. The flavor was there and the brown gravy was what I was used to. The fried rice, although a bit dry, also had a good flavor. My gripe with this particular dish was the size of the shrimp. In the picture that I posted, you can see that the shrimp is smaller than my fork! These were baby shrimp- something I just never seen before when eating Chinese takeout. I couldn't see the shrimp right away because they were hidden inside the egg patty.
This meal was a true disappointment & it's one of the reasons why patrons are choosing to cook more and more at home. I like to eat out every now and then, but this experience put a bitter taste in my mouth- literally and figuratively. The price gouging is ridiculous. I give two stars for the egg foo young. Minus three stars for that audacity of an appetizer and how much they charged me for it.
