Angels and Dumplings

My cousin Erika has co-authored a book about Angel Island named Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America. She was in New York as part of her book tour to promote the book. Tonight she was in Chinatown for a reception and then a talk about her book with her co-author Judy Yung.

Most of the family on the east coast came into town to see her talk. It was also scheduled to start at 7pm. But knowing traffic in New York City, we left home at 4:30pm. Sure enough there was plenty of traffic and then there was the time spent looking for a parking space. What really made things slow was that the Feast of San Gennaro was going on in Little Italy. Many streets were blocked off and the GPS kept directing me to those streets.

But before we went to the reception we made a stop at one of my favorite dives for some dumplings, Prosperity Dumplings. There was an article on the Internet a few years ago listing the top dumpling places in New York and this was number 2 on the list. Being number 2 you are supposed to try harder or you can just have dirt cheap dumplings. And I mean dirt cheap, 5 dumplings for $1.

This place is really small with a counter along the side of the wall to comfortably seat 4 people. Most of the space in the tiny place is taken up by the kitchen and basically all they sell are dumplings. The dumplings can be served boiled or fried. Of course I got the fried dumplings, 15 in fact. The dumplings are plump, hot, and juicy. There is plenty of meat in them and the dough is not too thick like some other dumpling places.

With a price point that low, the place can be packed but since they just serve a few items the line moves quickly. There is a school across the street from the place and when the kids are let out, the place gets packed. And it is quite interesting to see all types of kids go to the restauran t, all races and all sizes. It is quite funny to see a kid that can just barely see over the serving counter step up and slap a dollar on the counter and without saying a word get their box of hot dumplings.


It was a good thing that we got some dumplings before the reception, it was held at a restaurant called the Red Egg. The Red Egg is a high-end Chinese restaurant. Fancy decor and plates and high prices. They served appetizers and while they were quite good, not enough to fill up on by themselves. In contrast, across the street was a dumpy looking cafeteria style Chinese restaurant that was serving 4 dishes plus rice for $4.50 if you eat there. For take-out it was only $4. At the Red Egg you can get a scallion pie for $4.50.

After the reception, everyone went across the street to MoCA, the Museum of Chinese in the Americas. The talk was held in a small auditorium of the museum and it was standing room only. My cousin and Judy spoke for about an hour and it went quite well. Basically the significance of Angel Island is that it was the Ellis Island of the west coast. Thousands of immigrants from all over the world but mostly Asians came through and their experience was a bit different than those that came through Ellis Island.

The talk ended around 9pm and we were all pretty hungry. Unfortunately the cheap Chinese restaurant was closed by then and a quick stop at Prosperity Dumpling found that they were closed too. In retrospect, we should have walked a few blocks over to the Feast of San Gennaro as there would be plenty of great street food there.