Local eatery Hello Dumpling appeared on an episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives over the weekend.
The braised beef soup noodle and chicken rice dumplings were both featured. Photo by Kathy Tran.
On Feb. 21, “Dallas Dumplings, Florida Fried and Chi-Tacos” premiered on the Food Network, with June Chow’s neighborhood dumpling shop included as one of three featured restaurants. The full clip of Fieri’s visit can be found on Hello Dumpling’s Instagram page.
Fieri filmed at Hello Dumpling’s Peavy Road location late last year, as first reported by CultureMap. Chow prepared her top-selling braised beef soup noodle for the episode. Souped in a bone beef broth, the braised beef served with hand-pulled noodles earned high praise from Fieri.
“There’s such a good bite to the noodle,” Fieri said of the dish, “The shank is perfect for this – meaty and nice flavor.”
Chicken rice dumplings, traditionally translated as “pearl snowballs,” were also featured on the show. Chow showed Fieri the cooking process behind the dumplings and provided the Food Network with a make-it-yourself recipe. Neighbors can find it here.
It was Fieri’s first visit to our area since One90 Smoked Meats appeared in 2021.
Hello Dumpling started as a way to help Chow pay for her children’s college tuition. After launching in 2017 in the former Good To Go Taco space, she brought her dumplings, noodles and skewers to Lake Highlands with a location at The Hill at Walnut Hill and Central Expressway in 2022.
“It’s a very basic type of food and it could be consumed everywhere,” Chow told the Advocate earlier this year. “I would like to show people how broad the appeal is, how everybody just eats dumplings. I guess the goal is to really normalize it and make dumplings just another food. That’s what happened to pizza. Pizza was weird in the beginning and now nobody thinks of it like, ‘Oh my God, that is so strange and foreign.’ You go and eat a taco, I think it doesn’t matter who you are, you know what a taco is. Having those kinds of foods become a part of someone’s everyday preference. It just becomes like a routine that I’m gonna go with dumplings. It’s not something weird and foreign.”
Chow’s menu focuses on quality over quantity. Dumpling fillings include fish, pork, beef, chicken and vegetables, and come boiled or pan-fried (except for rice dumplings, which come steamed). Soup noodles like the braised beef are house favorites. Other hot bites include the Hunan rib; chicken, beef or tofu skewers; sauced noodles and baozi.
“Dallas Dumplings, Florida Fried and Chi-Tacos” will next air on the Food Network on March 15.
