last night cavin and i braved the supposed bad dc metro area traffic and drove ourselves to another $20 tuesdays (which was held on a wednesday this time around). the destination? china bistro in rockville, maryland. in a 4 or 5-store strip plaza that also houses a liquor store, dry cleaners, and unrented commercial space, you would practically miss it if you weren't paying attention.

the menu? all dumplings. it is always nice to dine with other people, especially if your goal is to try as many things on the menu as possible. although cavin and i have big stomachs (though, our eyes are much bigger), if we had gone there by ourselves, we wouldn't have been able to taste the flavor profiles as we had last night.

the others that were there ahead of us (and that put the event together) chose some appetizers that were already on the table by the time we arrived. mama's mixed vegetables consisted of woodear mushrooms, dried bean curd, and some sort of gluten product. this was my favorite, as i love that thin cartiledge-like texture of the black mushroom. pickled radish and spicy cucumber were reminicent of panchan we would get in any korean restaurant. we also got baby fish and peanuts (more of a finger food than an appetizer), and five flavors of beef (the beef was bland and looked like head cheese).

we sampled almost all of the dumpling flavors china bistro offers (they were out of the fish meat dumpling). i shouldn't even use the word sampled. it was more like stuffed our faces. here's a list of the dumplings we tasted:

vegetable
vegetable triple (chive, shrimp skin, egg, bean curd)
pork w/green squash (zucchini)
chive shrimp
beef w/ celery (fried)
ji cai pork (fried)
mama's special (pork, shrimp, chives, nappa cabbage, fried)

my favorites were the veggie triple, the beef w/ celery, and the fried ji cai pork. (the chive shrimp gets an honorable mention.) i think the veggie triple was rather interesting with the scrambly egg inside, though i tasted no shrimp flavor. the beef dumpling was quite different than any beef dumpling i've had before: with each bite, i was pleasantly treated to crunchy bits of celery.

were these the best dumplings i've ever eaten in my life? probably not. but i'd safely bet that these have been the best i've eaten in the metro area. if we venture out to the md burbs again, maybe we'll stop by and pick up some dumplings for a quick and cheap meal, though, i'd probably pass on the ordinary americanized chinese food (so i hear) and just stick with the dumplings.

(did i mention that we each paid $13 total for the appetizers and about 16 dumplings per person?)

china bistro
755 hungerford drive
rockville, md 20850
301.294.0808

Labels: event, pork, restaurant