Dumplings are comfort. Little bites of tasty comfort deep fried, steamed or poached. It doesn’t matter if they come from Eastern Europe or Eastern Asia. Something about bite sized food completely intact and ready to eat makes me instantly happy. You may think then the Mother's Dumplings, comfort with a side of maternal, is joy. You’d be about right.
Calling Mother’s Dumplings a restaurant feels like a bit of a stretch. It’s a little two room basement in Chinatown where none of the furniture matches and when full seats 16. The kitchen takes up about º of one room and the menu is logically kept small and simple. The dumplings have always been my reason for going but they also offer stea
med buns, noodles and those chive pancakes that I’m inordinately fond of. I personally love the room, but you should enjoy a fair amount of quirk with your meal to dine here. In addition to the standard Chinese restaurant dÈcor of red tablecloths and hangings, a small TV sits in the corner, apparently showing a slideshow of tropical flowers. Roy Orbison plays throughout the basement, and at no point are you ever under illusion that you are not a basement. There is charm though, like in the little sayings on the order form (I learn Mr. Coles Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing) and the day’s paper and books in the corner. It’s a homey spot, as anyplace invoking maternity in the title should be. 
The dumplings are sold in 12's and 24's ready to eat, or 30's frozen to take home. I order 12 of the pork and chive steamed dumplings ($5.50) and have to take halve to go. The presentation is minimal (dumplings on the plate) and the sides are limited to the standard sauces (soy, hot and so forth). The dumplings are well seasoned with a 50% ratio of meat to chive. Wrapped in wontons and dunked in hot sauce houte cuisine they ain’t. What they are is pretty tasty.
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