Boston's Chinatown
Published September 4, 2022
After resting from exploring the Boston Waterfront, we followed Atlantic Ave south to Congress Street.
Our first stop on the way into the South Boston Waterfront was to see the tickets and timing for the Boston Tea Party Museum.
We could see the Tea Party ships and the museum as we walked down the street.
Lines of parents with fussy children clogged the sidewalk. The museum’s ticket booth was not strategically placed, so we bumped into people as we passed, moving in the opposite direction. A countdown on the side of the museum said that it would be two hours to the next group could go.
Thankfully, my boyfriend did not want to wait two hours to throw tea in the harbor, so we took some pictures and watched the tours from the street. A group of students set up music equipment across the street and performed live. We listened for a bit before continuing down Congress Street into the South Boston waterfront.
A giant wooden milk bottle caught our attention as we crossed over the bridge of Congress Street.
A line formed at the milk bottle and I saw one person leave with an ice cream cone. We planned to visit the milk bottle in a bit to view their menu. Across the plaza was a large building with a sign for a speciality cooking store. I couldn’t resist visiting a cooking store, so we stepped inside to get a break from the afternoon sun.
The store had pricey jams and sauces, specialty cooking supplies, and decorative napkins. The store was empty except for us and one cashier. We didn’t buy any cooking materials but it was fun to look around.
Our goal for this side of Boston was to visit the Boston Fire Museum, which was two blocks over from the Milk Bottle and the cooking store, but when we arrived it was closed on the weekday.
A spontaneous search told us that there was a bookstore to explore in this section of Boston named Porter Square Books. We set off to find it, heading toward the Seaport Square, not too far from the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Porter Square Books
We finally found the bookstore. Surprisingly, you had to enter through Grub Street’s Center for Creative Writing to get to the bookstore.
The bookstore was a fair size with large windows that looked out onto the Harborwalk and water. The shelves of books were well stocked and organized. A few standup displays of notebooks, funny dish towels, stickers, and journals caught my attention.
We didn’t stay long at the bookstore because we were starting to get hungry. We decided to save seafood for dinner and decided to visit Chinatown for lunch, as that was in the direction of our accommodations.
We followed the Harborwalk on this side of town past Fan Pier Park, Seaport Boulevard, and the Children’s Harborwalk, until we were back at Congress Street near the Hood Milk Bottle.
Boston’s Chinatown
After visiting a rare manuscript and bookstore (which I cannot find the name of to recommend!), we found the entrance to Chinatown, which we missed the first time we tried to explore this section of Boston.
This area was bustling with people. We passed groups of elderly men playing cards in the shade on a plastic table. We stepped around two photographers who laid on the ground in the center of the archway.
The sidewalks were narrow and busy. We knew we wanted to get dumplings for lunch, so we stopped at any shop that looked interesting as we made our way through the streets.
Hing Shing Pastry Inc
The first bakery on the left-hand side of the road after passing through the Chinatown archway was Hing Shing Pastry.
I could see their pastries from the window, similar to the way Bova’s Bakery did, which is what caught my attention.
The interior of the bakery was an orange-y color, small, with the pastry cases as the main focus of the room.
While Hing Shing offered cookies and pastries that I recognized, we decided to share a mooncake, which I have never had before!
Brown Lotus Seed Mooncake | $6.00
We tried our mooncake out on the sidewalk. I was shocked at how heavy the mooncake was! It was a hearty pastry.
The lotus paste filling was slightly sweet and a little nutty. I really enjoyed it and would’ve loved to have it with a cup of tea. 10/10 would recommend you visit Hing Shing Pastry when you’re in Chinatown. If we weren’t stopping for dumplings, I would’ve went back inside and selected some other pastries to try.
Dumpling King
Our goal for lunch was to visit the Dumpling King, which my boyfriend found while we were exploring places to eat in Chinatown. I was worried that this would be more of an Americanized chain, rather than an authentic dining experience, but I figured that dumplings were going to be a quick and easy lunch.
It was a challenge to find the Dumpling King at first. Our GPS took us to a business where, upon entering, two doorways led to businesses while a staircase led down to a hot pot restaurant.
The doorway on the left was a ramen restaurant and the doorway on the right looked like many businesses, but nothing resembling dumplings.
Luckily my boyfriend led the way through the right-hand door, where, in the back right-hand side of these many small stalls, was the Dumpling King.
The Dumpling King should’ve been called the Dumpling Queen, because two little grandma’s worked behind the counter of this stall. A grey plastic card table with three plastic folding chairs sat in front of the counter, where a single-page printed menu listed the offerings.
We ordered the 10 piece fried pork and leek dumplings. We sat at the chairs in front of the table. To the left of the counter was a large freezer with bags of the dumplings available for sale.
To the right, a small in-set had plastic tables and chairs with handmade artwork on the walls. Behind us, stalls for sushi, ramen, and boba were available. As we waited, one woman in high heels ordered sushi to go, and a doctor came in in his blue scrubs and placed his usual order for dumplings with the grandma behind our counter. He sat next to us as he waited for his food to-go.
Pork and Leek Dumplings | $6.50
10 dumplings for $6.50 was a steal. We split the order between the two of us, waiting several minutes for the piping hot dumplings to cool before we could eat them.
These dumplings were stuffed with filling, which was tender and well-seasoned. The crispy outside was the best. The dumplings came with a soy-based dipping sauce, which was tasty.
Overall, Dumpling King was a 10/10 for their dumplings, and clearly a local place that isn’t easily found. I feel Dumpling King could improve their signage on the doors of the building to ensure they are easily found.
With bellies full of warm dumplings, we finished exploring Chinatown by stopping inside a beauty store with a window full of squishmellows. They sold candies, makeup, food items, and beauty products which were displayed beautifully.
With a few gifts in hand, we made our way to Boylston Street and then up Arlington toward our accommodation. We even passed a pretty building with a Steinway sign, parallel to the shaded sidewalk of the Boston Common.
The afternoon sun was cooling and many people filled the park and bustled across the street. Our goal was to rest in the afternoon and research where we would go to dinner for our last evening in Boston.
Dinner Review
If you have a favorite location in South Boston or in Chinatown, leave a comment below with your recommendation.
If you’re ready to read my dinner review of our last evening in Boston, click here.
