Luscious Dumplings arrives from L.A. with a Michelin pedigree and a machine that can churn out 6,000 dumplings an hour
L.A.-based Luscious, which was awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand, has come east from California.
The Philadelphia area, which has no shortage of dumpling options, is now home to another Michelin-recognized dumpling destination: Luscious Dumplings, which was awarded a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2021, 2022, and 2023 at its original location in the Los Angeles area.
The Michelin Guide, stingy with its citations, gives Bib Gourmands to less-posh restaurants it deems are “good quality” with “good value cooking.” Its review reads: “While many spots make dumplings ahead of time and freeze them, this kitchen starts fresh every morning.” Anything pan-fried is the main draw, it added.
Luscious Dumplings’ Philly location opened Monday in a double-wide Chinatown storefront at 937-939 Race St. (It was last Good Harvest, but you may remember it from the 1960s and 1970s as China Castle.) It’s the second Michelin-approved dumpling restaurant to arrive in the Philly area in recent years, following Nan Xiang Soup Dumplings, which has spots in Cherry Hill and King of Prussia.
Alan Lam and Grace Li founded Luscious in 2001 in San Gabriel, Calif., naming it Run Feng Yuan, which sounds pretty in Mandarin. But, as Eater reported in 2016, it translates as “Moist, Abundant Garden,” and since many English speakers recoil at the word moist, the couple opted for luscious. In 2012, their daughter Michelle Wu and her husband, Ker Zhu, opened a second location in Monrovia, Calif., followed by a shop nearby called Mason’s Dumpling Shop and another in Aurora, Colo.
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Franchisees E Lin and her husband, Chen Lu, who have a decade of Philadelphia restaurant experience, are friends of Wu and Zhu.
Last month, Zhu traveled east with several workers to help set up the Race Street kitchen, which includes a Taiwanese-made Anko machine that can turn out 6,000 dumplings an hour. Workers made batches of dough and pork filling, fed each into the machine, and calibrated as the first dumplings rolled off the line. As an experiment, Zhu fried the dumplings and apologized that they did not look perfect. They had a pleasant chewiness around a garlicky pork middle, as tasty as any hand-made I’ve tried. Some dumplings will be hand-made, he said.
Luscious’ menu, small by Chinatown standards, has eight starters, including pickled lotus root, bok choy with oyster sauce, wood-ear mushrooms, sliced pork ears and bean curd, and scallion pancakes. It also features a few soup noodle and rice bowls; Angus beef and stewed pork belly bao buns; and a dozen steamed, boiled, and pan-fried dumplings, including the pan-fried chive pockets (jiucai hezi) that are a bestseller. There are adorable dessert buns shaped like pig’s faces. Garlic fans will appreciate the house-made chili oil.
Like previous occupants of the location, there are two dining rooms divided by a staircase.
Luscious Dumplings, 937-939 Race St. Hours: 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Sunday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday.