You heard me talk about Mama Lan dumplings on the site before. However, Brixton is not an area I can easily go to. I’ve seen my social feed with news that Dan Doherty was doing a take over for Mama Lan. For the first time ever, Dan Doherty created a one of a kind duck dumpling for them.
Having checked out Mama Lan website I saw a branch opened up in Stratford, my side of town. To me the on google maps it looked like it was in the middle of nowhere, with no transport to get to the area.
On a day off last week, I happened to be at Westfield in Stratford I had another appointment to attend later on the evening. I was getting that afternoon hunger call and remembered about Mama Lan East Village. Loading up Citymapper it showed a 20 min walk from Westfield. It’s not far from Stratford International station cutting through the new builds its station underneath a new block of flats.
The lunchtime hours for 12-4pm, a race against time I made it for around 3:30pm putting through an order of 2 portions of dumplings, some crispy chicken buns and chrysanthemum flowers, goji berry, rock sugar. Mama Lan does Beijing-style snacks and is known for their unique dumplings. There was no one else around at the time, I chosen seats by the window for good lighting for photos. Simple wooden tables and stools reminded me of Hong Kong style, Cha Chaan Teng.
My tea came in the form of a kilner glass, the tea is hand assembled in a tea bag with delicate fruity light flavours. Mama Lan Beijing dumplings never disappoint and tasted consistent to the ones I had at their Brixton branch. The limited edition duck dumplings came in a bowl of duck soup, three pieces of dumplings, fried shallots and coriander leaves. Duck meat inside is cooked tender, lightly seasoned, filled with salted cabbage.
Traditional Beijing buns came to me in a pleasant surprise, I was expecting steamed hirata buns style. The dough used for the dumplings were deep fried and used as buns, crispy chicken is deep fried until golden brown, and crunched at every bite, spicy mayonnaise complemented well.
All together the bill ran up to about £22. If I wasn’t craving so much dumplings it’s more worth the money to get a bowl of noodle soup.
{google_map}21-24 Victory Parade East Village, Strand, London E20 1FY{/google_map}