The Fun Gor (粉粿) with Mushroom at Palais Imperial in Ottawa were well made, extremely tasty, and well deserved a 5 out of 5 Rating.
Generally, when Fun Gor dumplings appear on a Dim Sum menu, they are of the ‘Chiu Chow’ variety, or 潮洲粉粿, which are more particularly described in my review of the Chiu Chow Fun Gor at Fan’s. The Fun Gor dumplings you see above were served to me at the Palais Imperial Restaurant in Ottawa and replaced the Pork and Peanuts in the ‘Chiu Chow’ type with diced Mushrooms and Water Chestnuts. I prefer the Pork variety myself, but these were very good.
As you can see from the inset above, these were described simply as Mushroom Dumplings on the menu, but identified as being of the Fun Gor type (粉粿) in Chinese characters. The 素 character that appears before the other two does not specify ‘Mushroom’, but rather indicates, in this context, that the dumplings are ‘Vegetarian’.
Anyway, the filling in these dumplings consisted of reconstituted dried Chinese Black Mushrooms (Shiitake), chopped to a consistency like that ground Pork, and diced Water Chestnuts. There was also some celery in the mix along with, I am fairly sure, just a little bit of cilantro. I couldn’t really detect much in the way of seasoning in the mix, other than perhaps a little White Pepper, but they were slightly sweetish, so probably a little sugar was added too.
The size of the dumplings could have been a little smaller as these were a little unwieldy with chopsticks, but the taste and texture were excellent. The wrapper, made with the standard blend of Wheat starch, Tapioca, and either Cornstarch or Potato Starch, was steamed to a nice translucency so that the filling ingredients were just visible. All in all, I thought these excellent, and a nice change from the more common 潮洲粉粿.