Mister Antithesis
“Some people are contrarians all the time. Others only when they are right.” — Me
A Day at the Lower East Side Dumpling Festival.. A Tale of Woe
What a disaster! So the rain and chilliness certainly didn’t help matters, but still.. ugh. This was nothing like I expected. Gates opened at noon. I think I got there around 1:30, met by $5-per-dumpling-sample tickets and throngs of umbrella-wielding dumpling-eating hopefuls. Now, $5 per 2 dumplings might not seem THAT ridiculous, but I guess I was just thinking in comparison to many restaurants in the city where you get piles of the little guys for that much. But the money went to the Food Bank of NYC, so, fine. I sprung for 3 tickets because I was looking forward to gettin’ my dumpling on.. At this point I still expected to be swimming through veritable seas of them, dumplings as far as the eye can see! This was not the case.
I thought there would be hundreds (or at least dozens) of carts ‘n’ vendors, representing the finest the city (and the world!) has to offer. Instead, there were NINE, count ‘em, NINE “vendors” peddling “dumplings” to the throngs of hungry dumpling enthusiasts. Because of this, the lines were literally hours long - sometimes so long that folks in the back didn’t get the word from up front that there weren’t any dumplings left at all.
The only line I did manage to make all the way through unthwarted was that for the Indian idli. “Finally,” I thought, “all the strife, the pain, will be rewarded.” How wrong I was. Idli are described on Wikipedia as a cake of black lentils and rice. Dumpling? I think not! Aside from that infraction, I’m sure these can be good. Savory, even. But this was not. Flavorless and sandy in texture, topped with a bland, runny sauce. In the words of a fellow attendee, “I thought this was the dumpling festival, not the dry crappy piece of bread festival.”
The next line I decided to brave was for the Mexican tamale (also rather toeing the line of a dumpling proper). I made it almost to the front when rumors started that they were out of tamales! We sent a messenger, and sure enough, the reports were true. We were told we could get ‘priority positioning’ in line from someone authoritatively wielding a pen, but we were told it would be at least 20 minutes more. At this point I gave up, sold my remaining tickets to people at the front door, and went to Vanessa’s where I got 4 delicious chive and pork dumplings for a dollar, with a duck-filled sesame pancake for $2.50.
My apologies for the rant, but I really had high hopes for this. Such potential for greatness. But this event sucked ass. Not to mention the MC/host lady who came from Florida was SO loud and annoying it just made you wish you could wait in line in total silence. Anyway. THUMBS DOWN to the crapling festival! The eating competition was sort of alright, but the contestants were the smart ones - eating as many dumplings as they wanted for free! Some only had 8 or so, which I think meant they were just exploiting the system. Oh well. Thankfully there’s Vanessa’s.
This is pretty much what happened to Mr. Antithesis and I when we tried to get in on this dumpling festival. I was reminded that festivals sort of suck. It was almost amusing to listen to the dumpling eating contest, but as far as I could see, my gender was not represented on stage. What the fuck.
We bought 3 tickets, meandered through the many lines, looked at how few dumplings came on a $5 plate, saw how many dumplings were already sold out, and immediately sold our tickets back to someone waiting in line. Then we went to Prosperity Dumplings and got two #4 orders (5 for $1, but you just keep right on going to Vanessa’s). Because we were also curious about Malaysian dumplings, we went to a Malaysian restaurant and ate some of them guys. Later, we had some pierogi. Gyoza were considered, but rejected on account of we were already sloppy dumpling sluts.
We also spent considerable time mulling over what might be considered a dumpling. American-style dumplings, such as the ones in chicken and dumplings, are just little breadballs, like matzoh. But they’re referred to as dumplings. Why? Wouldn’t donut holes be dumplings, too, then? And although I can see arepas being semi-related to dumplings of the “food pocket” variety, I am not on board with this whole “tamales are Mexican dumplings” theory. The dumpling fest offered tamales, and I found this upsetting.
Anyway, here’s to hoping that New York gets together a better festival next year. I respect that it was a fundraiser, and therefore slightly less efficient than just getting your dumplings directly from the source, but the 2009 NYC Dumpling Fest was awful.
There have been many rumors about this event and few of them have been accurate. This is what makes Unsustainable’s post the best Tumblr post ever: it is full of unadulterated facts and paraphrasings of authoritative things I said.
I support the Festival’s idea of “dumplings of many lands”, and in fact this concept has long been a gastronomical favorite of mine. Maybe simply due to a underestimation of how many people agreed with me on this premise, however, this event was not the success it could have been. In other words, regarding Unsustainable’s report, it’s all true.
However, it does make one think, given that dumplings are cheap and available in excellent examples in the neighborhoods of downtown Manhattan (and therefore the world), why don’t we each take the responsibility to make our own Dumpling Festivals as often as we like?
