Vanessa’s Dumpling House
“2 orders and you're set
top it off with a sesame pancake and you're in a grease filled heaven.”
“My sister and I feasted on chive & pork dumplings, pork buns, and a pork sesame pancake.”
“Though prosperity dumpling down the street may give you a few more dumplings for a dollar, these are larger, fresher, and more flavorful.”
Vanessa’s Dumpling House
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Bike Parking: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
PokéStop Nearby: Yes
Price range.
$ Price range Under $10
8 reviews
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One of the best places in Chinatown to get the best bang for your buck! Don't expect great service because this is a no frills get in and get out kind of place. But do expect great food for the price point. Nothing is more than $5! The fried dumplings are a must get! Also the pancakes are to die for! The pancakes alone or stuffed with veggies and meats are so flavorful, crispy, and the right amount of breadiness. Go in hungry come out stuffed!
Yummyyy!!!! I love coming here if I'm in Chinatown for cheap eats! This place is almost always packed!
Dumplings are delish and cheap. They have steamed and fried ones. I also love getting their sandwiches with the sesame bread. The duck or roast pork are good! I just wish the bread wasn't as greasy.. But it's still so delicious!
Vanessa crushes dumplings. My wife and I love Asian food, and we devour dumplings with great regularity. When we decided to head to the lower east side for a night out, we stopped in to Vanessa's for a "cheap and cheerful dinner". We left full, satisfied and anticipating our next trip. We ordered ALL the dumplings, two different type of fried and three different types steamed. The steamed dumplings can also be served in soup, but it was like a thousand degrees out so no. I also ordered a duck pancake, I mean, how big could it be? At a total of 22.50, (including some soft drinks) we had enough food to take home. The fried dumplings are crispy and the filling (pork and stuff) is flavorful. The steamed dumplings we got in a spicy hot oil, which was hot, but easily mellowed by the soy sauce vinegar concoction on the tables. The duck pancake was the bomb. At three bucks it reminded me of a Chinese Stromboli. Duck, cucumber, and cabbage served between two seeded scallion pancakes. Unreal! So the place is a little divey and I was surprised that it had an A cleanliness rating based on the dining room, but the food is solid and served hot at a great price! Will be back!
This place is amazing. It's so cheap. I think they have a great variety on the menu. The food comes out so quickly. I was so hungry that I forgot to take pictures of the food before I ate it! But, I had the Kimchi Pizza which I'm still craving that right now and that was 4 days ago. I also had the dumplings, they were okay. But as cheap as they were, I'd say it was perfect.
The Kimchi Pizza was bigger than I thought, and I was able to split it in half to share. The only thing about this place that I didn't like was that there is not many tables for such a busy place. And bigger people can't sit down because it's such a tight-squeeze. Stuff like that, I judge about and I really don't like that. They need more space in between the tables for people so be seated comfortably.
Dreamed of steamed veggie buns for weeks, the soft sweet white dough filled with tangy crunchy umami delights.
1) authentic
2) bargain
3) local old school New Yorker spot
4) bathroom plastered in 30 years of band stickers and graffiti
5) made fresh in front of you
6) all carbs!
Everything was great except the Kimchi was too young for my taste.
Don't tell everyone about this place, only people who will appreciate it.
Overrated. I was so excited to try Vanessa's but the hole in the wall joints in Chinatown are so much better.
Very big location. Good amount of seating. Service was good and food came out fast.
Beef Noodle Soup – $5 – Watered down beef broth. Had no flavor at all. Noodles were really over boiled and mushy. Beef was tender though. Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles is way better.
Chive & Pork Boil Dumplings – $3.25 – Good filling, just not as good a Prosperity!
Pork Fried Bun – $1.50 – So much dough, barely and pork filling.
Left here very disappointed.
It seems that there are plenty of cheap dumpling spots around the area so I decided to step away from my usual spot (China North) and give a different place a try. Luckily, Vanessa's was a walk away from where I was staying.
I originally wanted to order just their fried and boiled dumplings, but was told the minimum needed to order when using a credit card was $15. So I figured I should just order a few other items and eat the leftovers the following morning. This is what I had:
Lychee Smoothie
Refreshing and sweet. I was a fan of this.
Boiled cabbage & pork dumplings
Delicious! I love the texture of the dough, chewy and thick. I like to dip these in the sauce they packed with it.
Pan fried chive & pork dumplings
These were tasty but I prefer the boiled dumplings due to texture.
Noodles with meat & bean sauce
I was pretty disappointed with this. The noodles were too soft for my liking and the sauce didn't add much to the noodles. I would skip this.
Roasted pork.
I was envisioning the kind with the nice, crisp skin but instead I got a to-go container of what looked like stewed pork. It was still tasty and it did help salvage the noodles with meat & bean sauce. This was also pretty greasy too.
The food at Vanessa's is cheap and tasty, but I would definitely stick with their dumplings.
We stopped by this restaurant after discovering Prosperity Dumplings had shuttered there doors. Chinatown and Chinese food in general was a big focal point of our visit, and we were definitely craving some dumplings. Based on some other yelp recommendations, we figured- we'd give Vanessa's a shot. We ordered the pan fried pork and cabbage dumplings as well as the chicken and basil dumplings.
Both dishes were made to order and piping hot. Although both order of dumplings were fresh and surprisingly juicy- the wrappers weren't as amazing. I usually expect these dumplings to have a thick crispy bottom and chewy tops. However, our dumplings weren't crispy and were either mostly chewy or just overall soggy. The stuffings for the dumplings were great, but the finishing touches weren't as stellar. The flavor was overall flavor was nonetheless great. This could be a one time fluke. We will be back again to give it another shot.