Palace Dumplings Review

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Across the street from the North End of Marist College lies the ever-popular Mid-Hudson Plaza. This plaza is home to nearby convenience stores and restaurants like ShopRite, Jersey Mikes and Starbucks. Recently, a new restaurant, Palace Dumplings, opened up in the plaza, located across the road from Smoothie King. This is Palace Dumpling's second location, with the original one located 16 minutes down the road in Wappingers Falls.

According to Palace Dumpling's website, the current operator of the stores is Chef Hu Yanmei, who gives herself the nickname of Chef Jenny. She came from her own family's restaurant in northern China with her husband, who is a chef from Mongolia. They work together with their daughter cooking the meals at these restaurants. Chef Jenny prides herself on “the finest ingredients” and “dishes faithful to Dongbei.” 

Other news publications like the Poughkeepsie Journal gave high praise to the original location, saying that the “authentic homemade dumplings here…are outstanding — delicate and beautifully prepared — and utterly addictive.”

Going to the recently opened location, the inside of the restaurant strikes a balance between simple furniture and beautiful decorations, while the entrance displays a constantly falling waterfall along a well-designed landscape. In place of televisions, the ceiling of the restaurant has traditional Chinese lanterns with built-in screens to show videos of chefs cooking dumplings, noodles and other assorted foods. Around the restaurant itself is a large assortment of plants and other smaller decorations. Each dark oak table has a variety of dipping sauces, including sweet and sour, sweet and spicy and soy sauces for usage.

As of the time of my visit, there were only three tables seated with two waiters between everyone, which provided a quick service. Within ten minutes of ordering the dumplings with ground beef and onion filling, the twelve hand-made dumplings arrive on the table. Each dumpling had a perfect golden-brown color to it and was stuffed with well-seasoned ground beef and diced onion. They tasted extremely fresh at a perfect temperature. Adding some soy sauce to the mixture added a tint of saltiness that brought the whole dumpling together.

Despite arriving semi-hungry, it only took half of the dumplings to satisfy that feeling, but the Palace Dumplings team had to-go boxes ready to take the remaining dumplings home. Even after reheating them in the microwave after spending a night in the fridge, they still tasted exceptional.

During the experience, there were only two minor downsides to the Palace Dumplings as a whole. The first downside was that the waiters never came back to the table to offer the check, so one of my friends had to physically go up to the waiter for us to pay. The other downside was the price itself, as twelve dumplings cost $10.99 on top of a 3.99% fee for paying with a card and other taxes, bringing the price to around $12. 

But besides that, the ambiance, cleanliness, taste and overall experience were incredible. Even with considering the cost, the price is worth it for the occasional visit.