And that is why I am 100% against RDB. I’ve been to their 8th Street location and the Peking duck dumplings I received were horrendously cooked. Not overcooked–that wouldn’t be correct–but just done very poorly. They were dripping with oil and the skins were hard. Not al dente pleasant, but just… too chewy. The meat filling was skinny and unimpressive. The saving grace, and even then, not that enjoyable, was the sauce which imparted the only flavor to be found. There is no reason to pay $1/dumpling for “quality” ingredients, when a cheaper dumpling using non-specific-origined ingredients tastes many times better– I don’t appreciate the careful calculation of this restaurant in trying to be trendy. I appreciate the locavore movement and its respect of food sources, but I don’t support its rampant misuse or use simply as justification for improbable pricing. Do one thing, do it well, and price appropriately. RDB fails on the latter two counts.

If you want to win our love. Join the midtown lunch sandwich challenge. All those dumpling houses in ctown do the sesame bread sandwich. Do something similar at a lower (than your normal) price point for a month and maybe you can change the hearts and minds of those hardened by your prices. Just a thought.

It’s Kenny, Anita’s partner from Rickshaw. Zach, thank you for all of the shout outs regarding the truck. This is my first response to comments on a blog, but I thought I would put in my two cents. I hope I don’t get too ripped up!

Yes, the rent was very high as Anita said on 8th Street and while rents in midtown are pricey, the combination of (1.) our goal of doing a smaller store, (2.) the softening of the real estate market and (3.) a high density of people that support our truck in midtown makes us really want to put in a brick and mortar store up there.

Regarding the truck: we would love to be in midtown all week long, and indeed being on 52nd and Lex on Tuesdays and 45th and 6th on Fridays is very busy (thanks for showing the dumpling love!) but with only one truck (so far!) we like cruising around the city and going to spots that people suggest we should try (email us new spots!) and potentially also using the truck to figure out where we can put new shops.

And to the people that do think we are pricey compared to Chinatown, I want to remind them that by locating in the spots we do for customer convenience (23rd Street) we have higher rent costs compared to Chinatown which may be a bit difficult for most customers to get to, and I think we do have great dumplings with awesome recipes by our chef, Anita Lo and we use great ingredients that you may not find down in Chinatown. It really is what’s inside that counts thus we use Bell and Evan’s chicken, locally grown Hudson Valley duck and organic edamame in our dumplings.

Thanks, Zach for creating a great forum and see you on the truck!