Rickshaw Dumpling Truck

One lunch hour I was perusing the Soho food truck scene to see if anything piqued my interest. I didn’t have much time to mess around, but then I saw the Rickshaw Dumping Truck with no one in line. Jackpot! Luckily the only decision-making required of the soon to be dumpling consumer is to choose which type of dumpling they desire: Pork & Chinese Chive with soy sesame dip, Chicken & Thai Basil with spicy peanut sate dip, or Vegetarian Edamame with lemon-sansho dip. The soy sesame dip sounded most appealing, so I chose the Pork & Chinese Chive. I enjoyed the simplicity of only choosing between three kinds of dumplings and I opted to add a side salad to experience more tastes for my refined palate.

Rickshaw wins the award for most creative packaging. Opening my meal was significantly more fun than opening meals from other establishments. The dumpling box had an “eat me” sticker on it, and the soy sesame sauce had a “dip me” sticker on it. I thought this was a very nice personal touch. It dawned on me that some minimum wage employee had to put all of these stickers on the packaging in the event that my intelligence level was equivalent to Sarah Palin’s and I wasn’t sure how to correctly maneuver my food. I didn’t realize it was possible for food packaging to elicit a smile, so I must give credit where credit is due.

The dumplings were relatively average and could have been a little warmer, but overall they made for a satisfying lunch. The “salad” was some lettuce thrown in a plastic bowl with a peculiar dressing. Barely worth mentioning, except to suggest that you don’t order it.

Because the dumplings were prepackaged, it resulted in a rapid transaction time and a lack of customers in line. This is by far the quickest I have ever gotten a lunch meal from any food truck, let alone an Asian establishment. Normally my experience with Asian lunch cuisine involves at least a 30 minute to an hour wait while an Asian delivery man navigates the streets of Manhattan on his bicycle muttering “scuse me” and endangering citizens almost as much as when they’re operating a motor vehicle. Then I pray to the Lunch Gods that whoever I spoke to on the phone actually understood my order. After battling these Everest-like hurdles, I’m forced to do one of my least favorite activities, math, while straining to read whatever number was scrawled on the grease-stained order ticket to figure out how much I need to tip. These astronomical stress factors bring me to the conclusion that, in the event that you are debating between mundane options such as a sandwich or slice of pizza, the Rickshaw Dumpling Truck is definitely an easy way to switch up your lunch routine.

http://rickshawdumplings.com/RickshawTruck_Menu.pdf