Chinese Dumpling House located at 3636 Steeles Ave E, Markham

Chinese Dumpling House (真東北餃子館) has been at this Metro Square for many years, but I believe it is the first time that I ever visited.  My friend G and I were meeting up in this area and since she had dined here before, we picked this spot for our dinner and to catch up.  Many restaurants and stores have come and go at this plaza, but Chinese Dumpling House remains in operation.

View from my table

As this restaurant has been here for a long time, they are nondescript with their decor and very no frills.  The Chinese staff were working and prepping condiment packages when we arrived and said we could sit anywhere we liked.  It was an early dinner at 5:30 p.m. and we were the first customers there.

The paper order sheet shows you all of the available options for ordering.  As per their namesake, you can definitely expect a lot of dumplings, steamed or pan fried.

Menu 1

Menu 2

We ordered four items to share.  Everything was fresh and piping hot to the table.  The portions were very big too, especially the fried noodles.

Pan Fried Sliced Beef Shank in Pancake $9.99

The Pan Fried Sliced Beef Shank in Pancake ($9.99) was a surprise to us in that it wasn’t served in the way that we were used to.  We expected the beef to already been rolled up inside of the pancake and be eaten with our hands.

In this restaurant, they served it where you have to assemble it yourself (put the beef shank, onion, and sauce into the pocket of the pancake).  It was still tasty and very fresh (the pancakes were piping hot) but just not what we expected.

Putting in the pieces of beef shank into the pancake

Pan Fried Pork Dumplings $7.99

The Pan Fried Pork Dumplings (6 for $7.99) were great.  Very meaty and chunky.

Steamed Beef with Radish Dumplings $10.99

The Steamed Beef with Radish Dumplings (15 for $10.99) were served in the steamer.  Hot and stuffed full but not too flavourful.  They have many other variations of steamed dumplings like pork & pickled cabbage, pork & green peppers, pork & fennel, chicken & mushrooms, egg & leek, vegetable & mushrooms, etc.

Fried Noodle with Chicken $13.99

I actually wish the menu clarified what type of fried noodles these were going to be because it doesn’t say so on the menu (neither in English nor in Chinese).  The Fried Noodle with Chicken ($13.99) turned out to be the thick Shanghainese noodle types.  I personally prefer eating thin noodles.  Nevertheless, there was a lot of “wok hay” to it and still tasty to eat.  This was a gigantic portion.

Between the time that we left at around 8:30 p.m., we saw a lot more customers coming in and out to dine in.  I appreciated that the staff let us stay there to eat and chat for 3 hours and didn’t bother us.  It’s a solid spot for cheap dumplings in the Steeles and Warden area!

Chinese Dumpling House storefront

I realized while writing this blog post that they have another location in the Hwy 7  and Leslie area.  I’ve been to that spot a few times.  That location by the same name is blogged about here.