Hello Dumpling

What an expressive name is Hello Dumpling. It’s short, sweet and friendly, and it holds out the promise of delicious dumplings. There’s only one problem with the name: This restaurant’s noodles are even better. Hello Dumpling is serving a wide variety of northern Chinese home cooking and market foods: grilled skewers of meat, beef noodle soup, petite plates of veggie sides. There's nothing too ambitious here, but that's a central part of the restaurant's charm.The kitchen is making its noodles by hand, long and gently curly, and cooking them perfectly. The beef noodle soup sports a brown broth so rich with spices that its aroma hits the nose like an explosion. There are tender, flavorful slices of beef shank, bok choy, bean sprouts and scallions. Hot peppers hidden somewhere in the broth make their presence felt, as does the richness of bone marrow. It’s wonderful. Peking noodles are excellent, too, topped with bean sprouts, scallions, julienne zucchini and carrots, and a spicy, red pepper-flecked mixture of ground pork and finely minced tofu.