When I first moved to New York City almost 17 years ago, my cousin had already pre-discovered a high quality, local dumpling shop for me in my then new neighborhood of Elmhurst, Queens. It was called Lao Bei Fang and was on a side street along the main Broadway drag of Elmhurst, in an area that you could easily consider like a mini Chinatown. Back then in 2008, the owner hand-pulled almost all the noodles that were sold; he also hand rolled all the dumpling skins while his wife and helper filled them with meat and vegetable fillings. When I’d go during off times, I could get lucky and enjoy my hand pulled noodles or crispy bottomed potstickers while listening to him sing random Chinese operatic songs. The fried dumplings, aka potstickers, aka guo tie, were always perfect: they were crispy bottomed, perfectly steamed, and had juicy, rich fillings, stuffed to the brim. And I still cannot believe how cheap they were: back then, you could get four fat, stuffed, juicy dumplings for just $1! Eventually, they raised the price by a quarter, then two quarters. I’m not sure what they are charging now.

Since then, they’ve gained notoriety throughout New York City. Even tourists go there now. They had to keep up with demand and their growing business, so they started hiring more staff and grew out of their hole-in-the-wall on Whitney Avenue and moved into a much larger, more spacious restaurant along the main Broadway strip. And that, sadly, is when the quality notably declined. Once, I went and got fried dumplings that barely had a crispy bottom and were borderline cold. The noodles were irregular and almost gummy. The owner was nowhere to be seen. My favorite dumpling/hand pulled noodle place had changed forever.

At that point, I wasn’t sure what my reliable hand-pulled noodle/dumpling spot would be. I’ve found a few places in Manhattan Chinatown and Brooklyn Chinatown that do reliable steamed/boiled dumplings and hand pulled noodles. But I have yet to find a really good crispy bottomed guo tie/dumpling spot. There’s a divey spot under the Manhattan Bridge called Fu Zhou Wei Zhong Wei Jia Xiang Feng Wei, and that’s it. There are so many dumpling spots in New York City, almost too many to keep track of, but not all of them are going to have the same crisp and glory that Lao Bei Fang once had for me.