Fried Dumpling, New York, NY, February 21, 2004 — We don't spend a lot of time talking about prices on this website. For one, they change often. For two (can I say that?) price perception is relative to how much money you have. We're lucky to be able to eat out quite a bit. And while we don't assume that everyone can do it to the extent we do, we do assume that everyone can make up their own mind on how to spend their money. We are typically leery of restaurants for which an extremely low (or high) price is one of the main points people bring up in describing it. Fried Dumpling certainly qualifies in this category. The basic deal is 5 potstickers (or Peking Ravioli as we used to call it in the 80's) cost $1. That's a pretty ridiculously low price. You can also get 4 pork buns for $1 and a hot and sour soup for $1. If only this place had existed around the corner from my where I went to college (we had a psycho cheap Indian place instead). Bottom line: the food overall is certainly not bad, and even decent. I would say it's slightly above average food with exceptionally low prices. The dumplings were a little doughy and slightly oily. The soup was not super interesting. Not bad, but not good exactly. And while this is several grades above Americanized Chinese fast food, I'd still be willing to pay a little more for better dumplings. The best part of the visit was watching them make the dumplings. A middle-aged woman sat on a stool and churned out dumpling after dumpling wrapping the dough around the filling that she would parcel out from an enormous vat. It was fascinating.