Oriental Dumpling Restaurant: Your newest destination for Chinese dumplings

ORIENTAL Dumpling Restaurant. The freshly put up red and black sign at the space across from TransAmerica on Middle Road caught my attention when it opened early this month, and I got a chance to try this new restaurant for lunch last week.

With only a few minutes left of my buddy’s lunchtime break, we browsed through the menu and settled on steamed dumplings stuffed with beef and radish, and a bowl of hand-made noodles.

The dumplings came very soon, 14 gloriously folded and pleated pieces served on a platter. We looked questionably from each other to the various sauces and dips, wondering what to pick up best for the dumplings. There was soy sauce, vinegar, garlic sauce, chili oil and one labeled “balm” — all in transparent containers before a food staff approached us and picked out the garlic sauce and chili oil for us.

The hand-made noodles was served in a huge steaming bowl topped with mushroom strips, onion rings and green vegetables. It was hot and good, the taste of freshly-made noodles leaving a pleasant taste on our mouths but so huge a serving for someone who rarely eat lunch like me and for a buddy who had just gotten out of the sickbed. We were not able to finish everything but we took the rest of our food to share with friends.

Oriental Dumpling Restaurant is your newest destination on Saipan to satisfy your cravings for Chinese dumplings with real traditional flavors. You can have your dumplings boiled or fried and stuffed with any of the 12 different choices of pork or beef and celery or cabbage, or with leeks, mushrooms, radish, shrimp, eggs, onion and more for $7 a serving. You can also go for the steamed dumplings at the same price.

From the pickled dishes, Oriental Dumpling Restaurant serves spiced pork shoulder, sauce pig ear or chicken feet, beef seasoned with soy sauce, or braised pig feet in brown sauce, all from $8 to $12 per serving.

From $3 to $6, you can have your pick from several choices of cold vegetable dish in sauce such as fried peanuts, seaweed strips, spicy mix cucumber, cold beef silk, sour and sweet shredded radish, and more. Dip into the appetizing taste of cold or warm noodle, fried noodle, wonton, or fried manual twist from the restaurant’s noodle selections from $4 to $6 a bowl.

In another room beside the main restaurant, food staffers are busily making hand-made noodles and deftly preparing dumplings to meet the customer’s orders.

Enjoy your lunches and dinners at this brightly lit restaurant with colorful flowers on the glass tables and exquisite canisters for dips and sauces adding to the relaxing atmosphere at very affordable prices.

Oriental Dumpling Restaurant is located next door to Hailan Market, Chalan Laulau Road. Major credit cards are accepted. They are open from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for lunch, and from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. for dinner. For reservations, call 234-1188 or 483-8812.