This may sound like an odd request, but I'm a foodie on a mission. I have been known to indulge in a variety of foods: Indian, Mexican, and Greek just to name a few. Though I'm a big fan of Chinese food there is still one dish that eludes me: dumplings.

I don't know why, but dumplings/potstickers have just never been my go-to. I suppose I favor the crispy egg rolls and wontons instead. However, lately I can't seem to escape references to dumplings! The final straw was when one of the titular characters on Grace and Frankie (no spoilers) attempted to break the world record for most dumplings eaten at a time. That was the final straw! I must try them.

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I turned to local Facebook group The Kalamazoo Foodie to get straight to the source, but I seem to have struck out there. The only response I got was from Nalini Quraeshi who replied:

Cumin on Stadium Drive has pretty awesome Nepali ones called momos with either chicken or vegetables. Comes with chutney

While momos do indeed sound delicious, that's not exactly what I'm going for! But thanks, Nalini.

Potstickers vs. Dumplings

It seems many foodies use the two terms interchangeably but in order to clarify what I'm even looking for myself, I looked into whether there's actually a difference between the two-- it turns out there is one! It turns out all potstickers are dumplings but not all dumplings are potstickers.

Although both dishes consist of a vegetable and/or meat filling wrapped in a dough, dumplings are traditionally boiled or steamed whereas potstickers are often crispier and fried. The website Spoon University says,

Rumor has it that a Chinese chef intended to boil jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) in a wok, but walked away and returned to find all of the water boiled off. Here's where the distinction of potstickers vs dumplings happened. The dumpling stuck to the pan and got crispy, which is how the dumpling got its name of potsticker, which literally means "stuck to the wok."

Now that I know what they are, where can I find them in the Kalamazoo area? A quick search returned the following results:

I'm looking for some first-hand experience though! Give it to me straight: Who has the best dumpling/potstickers in the Kalamazoo area?

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