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Dumpling Generation or 面食代 (pronounced Mian Shi Dai) is a Northeastern Chinese restaurant that specializes in hand-made dumplings and noodles.
The name
“Mian” means both “flour” and “noodle” in Mandarin Chinese. “Shi Dai” is a play on words of the phrase meaning “Generation”. The “shi” is usually the character 时 meaning time but has been changed to “shi” 食 meaning food. So directly translated 面食代 means flour or noodle generation but since flour is also used to make dumplings, we have chosen “Dumpling Generation” as the English name due to the popularity of dumplings in the area at the moment.
The History
Northeast China has historically produced much of the commercial food grains and economic crops for all of China. Therefore, people traditionally eat many flour-based foods, such as dumplings and noodles. It’s also very cold in this region so fermented dishes such as pickled cabbage aka “sauerkraut” is consumed in the winter. Our family is originally from the Liaoning province of the People’s Republic of China. We previously owned a restaurant in Anchorage, Alaska called “China Town”, which was featured in the “Anchorage Daily News” three times. The restaurant was known for its authentic Chinese food menu although we did sell mainly American Chinese food (not proud of it but it’s what the people wanted!). Many Chinese government officials and ambassadors have eaten at “China Town” restaurant, as well as world renowned pianist “Lang Lang” who was only 22 years old at the time. He’s a fan of the sauerkraut with pork belly :)
OUR MISSION
Chinese restaurants often have a bad rep for being dirty, oily, unhealthy, and full of MSG. Cleanliness is our top priority and we only use the best ingredients. We use only chicken breast for any dish that calls for chicken (including our chicken dumplings). We ground our own ground pork from sirloin and pork belly. And if a supplier isn’t providing us with the freshest ingredients, we find somebody else who can. MSG DISCLOSURE: We don’t use msg but there are trace amounts of it in the chicken soup base we use in some dishes. If you’d like to be MSG free just ask if we can omit the chicken soup base in whatever you are ordering. We’ll try our best to accommodate your needs. Nothing here is deep fried or cooked in a way that will make you feel awful after eating it (except for maybe feeling too full but we told you not to order that much!) We hope to see you here!