The modern Chinese food restaurant District Kitchen, located just steps from the Malden Center T station, is open for dine-in, takeout and delivery. It has a cozy, but casual bar and dining room, differing from the usual, simple mom-and-pop takeout Chinese restaurants. We dined there recently for Lunar New Year, enjoying some appetizers to-go.
Since it was the holiday, we wanted to order dumplings, or jiaozi. The dumpling shape resembles the ancient Chinese gold ingot. For Chinese people during the Lunar New Year, it is important to eat these, as they are believed to usher in good luck and prosperity. The dish also represents the importance of reunion of the family and loved ones gathering together during this holiday. We ordered the MaMa’s Dumplings ($9.50), which were eight bite-size dumplings, with a very traditional pork and Chinese Napa cabbage. These were more the northern style dumplings with a thicker skin compared to the thinner skins used in dumpling from the southern region in China.
The dumplings tasted handmade and delicious, especially dipped in simple soy and rice vinegar dipping sauce. We also got the Cuttlefish, Pork, Shrimp and Chive with Black Ink Skin dumpling ($11). The black colored dumpling skin is from squid ink. The dumpling filling got its sweetness from the shrimp, which matched nicely with the mild cuttlefish, pork and chives. You can choose to have your dumplings pan-fried or steamed. We tend to love the crispy texture and extra juicy filling from pan frying. While the healthier method of cooking is steaming and juicy, we missed the contrast of textures from the pan frying method.
A simple, but ubiquitous Chinese appetizer is the District’s Homemade Scallion Pancake, also known as green onion pancake, ($7) which is made from unleavened dough. With origins pointing to Shanghai, this popular street food is delicious and this one was yummy. It was nicely crispy on the outside with the lovely chewy inside without being overly greasy.
One popular and beloved Chinese American appetizer staple is Crab Rangoon (six pieces for $9). This appetizer first was mentioned on a menu as far back as in 1952 at a Polynesian style restaurant in San Francisco and is now mainly only found in Chinese American restaurants. They are known as crab puffs made with puff pastry in the Pacific Northwest. Here at District Kitchen, they use egg roll wrapper to enclose the filling made from cream cheese, onions and real crab meat. We preferred eating it without the accompanying dipping sauce and it is better than the typical run of the mill Crab Rangoon.
Who doesn’t love meat on the stick? Chuan, a.k.a. meat skewers, grabbed our attention, so we got their Hometown BBQ Pork Skewer (four pieces for $10) and Hometown BBQ Beef Skewer (four for $12) to try. Chuan is from the Xinjiang Province in Northwest China where Chinese Muslims reside. A very popular street food made with lamb and other meats using small, juicy and fatty pieces of meat pierced by skewers with simple seasoning with cumin and chili pepper powder. These skewers are usually roasted over charcoal or electric heat. We wished they had lamb as an option, but we still enjoyed these skewers with the fragrant and strong cumin flavor I adore.
Menu items are on the pricier end, but we were curious to try some of their appetizer offerings. Service was friendly and the wait for our food was reasonable.
SAMPAN, published by the nonprofit Asian American Civic Association, is the only bilingual Chinese-English newspaper in New England, acting as a bridge between Asian American community organizations and individuals in the Greater Boston area. It is published biweekly and distributed free-of-charge throughout metro Boston; it is also delivered to as far away as Hawaii.
