It’s always fun to dine with fellow "food geeks." But it's especially fulfilling when those fellow gastronomes happen to be Rosie Saferstein and Jason Perlow, two pillars of the NJ food writing community, whose collective knowledge of cuisine is as broad as the globe itself.
We dined together at Gourmet Chopsticks in Fairfield, NJ. Really? Not Ninety Acres? Not Elements? Not daryl? No. Gourmet Chopsticks, formerly Hunan Cottage. The restaurant came highly recommended from Rosie, and if she says it good – I’m going to give it a go!
Gourmet Chopsticks serves Taiwanese and Shanghai style cuisine. What separates Shanghainese and Taiwanese cuisine? Approximately 425 miles. The same distance between NYC and Akron, OH, or NYC and North Carolina.
As part of my ongoing (and seemingly endless) Cooks of Summit Avenue Investigation, I visited the home of Christina O’Neill. Christina lives two doors down from the gastro-mechanic, Lou Palma and about five doors from Alison Bermack.
Christina and I spent the morning making delicious pork filled Chinese Dumplings. Soon after my visit, I took on the dumpling project. As Christina suggested, I was able to purchase a package of dumpling wrappers at East West Asian Market, 67 Belleville Avenue, Bloomfield, for less than $2! Though the crimping technique Christina demonstrates with such ease came a little slow to me, I succeeded in making about two dozen dumplings and tucked them away in the freezer.
Want to see how Cristina crimps the perfect pork filled dumpling? Watch the video below:
