Restaurant: Bafang Dumpling [Crawl: MK BBQ, Peking, Bafang, Spicy Home, Beijing Tasty ]
Location: 1552 S Azusa Ave Suite B, City of Industry, CA 91748. (626) 778-1958
Date: July 31, 2022
Cuisine: Chinese Dumplings
Rating: Bleh!
For stop 3 of our I’ll fated July far SGV crawl we (more or less me) inserted this dumpling place into the roster.
I’ve been wanting to try this for months as the website and online reviews made it look great. But as a dumpling only specialist I was never going to make a specific trip 40+ miles east just for this.
But boy was I in for some confusion. I hadn’t expected this “fast food” (or slightly “fast casual”) counter order format. Or the incredibly limited menu.
What I didn’t realize about Bafang was that it’s a super simple dumpling place reframed as a fast food chain.
Weird messages about their quality that don’t match the experience.
The menu is microscopic. It’s basically two shapes of dumplings, with 3-4 fillings, and a couple of simple noodles. Then a few extras.
The sauces, so important for dumplings, were just wretched. There was just plain soy sauce, vinegar, some gross packaged chili sauce. No proper dumpling sauce which is a mix of soy, vinegar, sugar etc. This completely ruined the taste for me (later).
They do a have a dumpling making room.
Signature pork dumpling, “potsticker” style. Pretty decent, interesting long shape, but a bit under seasoned.
Kimchi and Pork, boiled. Not too bad, but nothing stunning. A little spicy.
Corn and chicken potsticker. I liked the texture, but it didn’t have a massive amount of flavor.
Just in case you didn’t know.
These had a hint of mala, but looked kind of sad and tasted like the sauce was a mala tomato sauce. Very odd. Super overcooked noodles too.
Very mediocre. Almost any mom and pop dumpling place is better. If one of these was in a very convenient location and I needed a 15 minute solo meal I might consider going again — otherwise no — and certainly not an hour away. The dumplings themselves might be passable on a real plate. It didn’t taste BAD — I mean they are dumplings — but still.
I hate eating at crappy tables. I hate eating out of takeout containers and with plastic wares. I hate dumplings with no good sauce. Yuck. Just nothing to recommend. It wasn’t even that fast.