This from Sunset Parker:

Last week we checked in with great Mexican restaurants on Sunset Park’s 4th Ave.  This time we’re heading east both culturally and geographically.  Local lore says that 8th Avenue was chosen as the main thoroughfare for Brooklyn’s Chinatown (third largest after Flushing and Manhattan) because it is an auspicious number in Ancient numerology.  Stretching from 42nd to 60th, 8th ave is a panalopy of Chinese businesses, Temples and Community Organizations.  Among these are numerous restaurants (representing Malaysia, Japan, Vietnam and , of course, the various schools of Chinese cooking).

Northern China Dumpling Company on 49th just west of 8th is exactly that.  Barely a restaurant (they feature a total of two small tables and three chairs), behind the counter at NCDC, they focus on dumplings, pancakes and soups.  A no-frills run down formica establishment, their dumplings have the substance to back up the spot’s total lack of style.  The flip side is: they didn’t seem to spend much money and they don’t seem to be asking you to spend much money:

A dollar gets you five dumplings (pork and leek, chicken and mushroom, vegetable) steamed or fried.  Five dollars gets you thirty frozen (or freshly-made) raw dumplings to be boiled, steamed or fried at your pleasure at home.  The dumplings are the exact same ones that you pay three or four times as much for in restaurants.  The difference is they usually don’t make them fresh in the restaurant.  They do here.  And if you really want to take seriously the difference between wontons and dumplings; five dollars gets you fifty frozen (or freshly made) wontons!

If scallion, pork or chicken fried pancakes are your thing, those are also a dollar each (and big).  Haven’t tried the soup, but it’s a dollar for a small and two for the large.  The green bean soup sounds good. 

Sodas are still 75 cents.  When was the last time you saw that?

The whole operation, front (customer relations) and back (dumpling making), is run by two cheerful ladies.  One speaks no English, while the other speaks virtually no English.  They’re cool and they switch off making and selling the dumplings.

Don’t get me wrong, you wouldn’t want to head up to Sunset’s Chinatown just to come here.  But you wouldn’t want to come up here and not stop through here (either for a quick snack- or long term thinking, grabbing a couple of different 30 packs for the freezer).  Northern China Dumpling Company is not necessarily a destination…but definitely a smart diversion.