Foodventures in Dallas: Wu Wei Din Chinese Cuisine

Foodventures in Dallas: Wu Wei Din Chinese Cuisine

For my next notable stop in Dallas, I checked out a Chinese restaurant that specialized in my favorite food: dumplings!

JohnnyChugs

In my last Cortex post, I shared that I moved to the DFW area and decided to do a review of our first non-brand pizza place in town. Y'all liked it and gave me so many suggestions for places to go that I thought I'd share more notable places as I discover them here in Dallas. For this next one, I went after one of my favorite styles of food, Chinese! I love hot soup when I'm low or cold and I could eat dumplings every day for the rest of my life and never get sick of them. So tickle me pink when I learned there was a place near me that specialized in... dumplings!!!

Wu Wei Din Chinese Cuisine is over in Plano, tucked away very inconspiciously next to some giant MMA training gym. It's feels much warmer and roomier inside though. As I said, this place specializes in dumplings. They nearly have a menu full of steamed dumplings, fried wontons, steamed spicy wontons, pork buns, and... my favorite... soup dumplings. Worth noting, I came here during lunch and the menu was limited from what I saw on their website. I think they might have a bigger dinner menu and there are a lot of really good things there.

Nonetheless, my experience at Wu Wei Din was nearly everything I wanted it to be. I started off with some staples: hot and sour soup and egg rolls. Basic, but a good spot to start to gauge things. The egg rolls weren't anything spectacular. However, the hot and sour soup was great. They actually a layering of salt and spice on the edge of the soup for you to mix in. The tofu was good, the veggies were pleasant, and the spice was delicious, but not overbearing.

For my dumplings, I went with spicy pork wontons and pork and shrimp soup dumplings. The spicy wontons were delicate to the touch and very slurpable and the pork filling was delightful. The sauce had a nice tangy kick to it as well. Meanwhile, the soup dumplings are an experience. They bring them out in a wooden container on parchment paper. You dip them in ginger sauce and take a nip. Soup broth comes out and you can drink it out or eat the whole thing in a delightful gulp.

Finally, I had another heartier soup for my main meal: fried tofu and pork glass noodle soup. I love glass noodles, and this dish didn't skimp on them like I see some other establishments do. There was a near softball size serving of glass noodles underneath the topping. The tofu, being fried, had a nice chew and texture to it, and the pork was rolled in a bit of wonton that spiraled outward to make the whole presentation look great.

Worth mentioning as a sidenote, I had a jasmine hot tea, and their tea was so floral it was dang near an actual soap fragrance, but without actually crossing the line into unpleasant taste.

Wu Wei Din is my exact kind of place for the winter months. Whether I go there or take it home, I loved their dumplings and soups, plus there were so many other things on their menu I'd like to try. It's not the cheapest Chinese food, but it had a lot of unique things I'm not sure I'd find in one place elsewhere.

The only other thing that I felt a little off about was their reliance on pork. It's not that you can't get non-pork meals here, but I feel like a grand majority of a lot of their signature and most interesting menu items had pork in them. If that's a no-go for you, this place might not be as choice as other options. Still, a pretty dynamite dumpling stop with a grand array of other delicious things. 9 out of 10. Would dump again.

Pros

A whole menu of dumplings

Wontons, steamed, soup dumplings, you want a dumpling? they got it.

You can fit so many dumps on this menu

Lots of other good stuff on the menu too

very pleasant hot tea

Some unique spins on common things

Cons

A bit pricey

Most of the signature and popular dishes on their menu have pork

Lunch menu is limited and doesn't have everything on the website.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 28, 2022 11:34 PM

    I found my favorite dump stop in Dallas.

    Read more: Foodventures in Dallas: Wu Wei Din Chinese Cuisine

    • reply
      September 28, 2022 11:52 PM

      Tag: ninjase for soup dumplings, it is in Plano or Lewisville though

      • reply
        September 29, 2022 2:20 AM

        ninjase I think you are in Ft Worth area now? When I first landed in DFW area, Githyanki took me to a guy who fixes lawnmowers in Fort Worth, was a hour drive from me (nothing to DFW residents I know, he drove 2 hours each way daily to visit his mom) but it was a dude knew how to roast coffee beans, I quit doing mail order from Peets after that (I did that because because fuck Starbuck for a number of reasons). Anyway it was a long line of people there at his backyard shed and they weren't there to get they lawnmowers fixed, they wanted some excellent coffee. So if you are all about some coffee and still in Ft Worth area tag this in hopes that Githyanki still replies because I have no idea where dude was or what it was called, I just loved it enough to post this

        • reply
          September 29, 2022 9:18 AM

          I’m in the north corner of Ft Worth far away from all the fun things :(

    • reply
      September 29, 2022 12:15 AM

      I APPROVE OF THIS CORTEX POST

    • reply
      September 29, 2022 2:20 AM

      Plano is not Dallas!

      • reply
        September 29, 2022 6:59 AM

        Yeah, but because of the weird "head" part of far north Dallas, this place is very close to the Plano/Dallas border.

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          September 29, 2022 7:24 AM

          I guess if you consider Richardson to be part of Dallas, my mental map has anything north of 635 being "not Dallas"

          Also, it's sad that I couldn't imagine a legit asian place ever doing well in Dallas proper.

          • reply
            September 29, 2022 9:21 AM

            If someone from Plano or Richardson (or anywhere else around there for that matter) travels anywhere outside of DFW and is asked where they’re from, “Dallas” is the correct answer since saying plano or Richardson or any other Dallas suburb (or any suburb of any major city for that matter) will just be met with blank stares from anyone not familiar with that area

            • reply
              September 29, 2022 4:00 PM

              See and I used to live in a suburb of Kansas City. I didn't tell people I was from Mission or Shawnee. I told them I was from Kansas City. Dallas and the suburbs around it are something I took to like a duck to water.

              • reply
                September 29, 2022 8:04 PM

                Yea I imagine that’s how most places are, like I had a friend in college from Skokie, IL, but she would say she’s from Chicago (to people not from Chicago), and it seemed perfectly fine

    • reply
      September 29, 2022 6:03 AM

      Yessssss I used to live in that neighborhood and can confirm those dumps are great.

      We ordered from Sun Lok Kee BBQ across the street a lot as well.
      One block north and one block west at Park and Coit there is a place called Sichuanese Cuisine sichuanesecuisineplano.com is really good for non-american style Chinese food with the little peppercorns that explode with flavor in your mouth! In that shopping center there is also DFW Reptarium dfwreptarium.com which is a cool little pet shop that has lizards and spiders and non-standard pet stuff.

    • reply
      September 29, 2022 7:22 AM

      Looks legit. Source: I lived in Shanghai and Taipei - the two nexuses of soup dumplings - for like 9 years.

      Hot take: 家家湯包 (JiaJia Tang Bao, in Shanghai) is better than Din Tai Fung.

    • reply
      September 29, 2022 7:26 AM

      Looks legit to me

    • reply
      September 29, 2022 9:17 AM

      I’ve been wanting to go there! Mikey Chen reviewed it and said it was great too

      https://youtu.be/UDN2HZ2NZvY?t=1340

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