Ed's Potsticker House

I often stop to think about how lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life. One of these people is my sister Lizzie. We have grown much closer in recent years as we’ve started to discover how much we have in common.  One of the things we have in common is an interest in unique ethnic food. While she was in town for Christmas break, we made plans to meet up for something tasty. Katie and I met up with Lizzie and her boyfriend Kevin and headed down to Bridgeport to check out Ed’s Potsticker House.

I originally read about Ed’s Potsticker House on the LTH Forum where it is listed as a Great Neighborhood Restaurant (GNR). The place has been serving authentic Chinese cuisine for many years. EPH focuses heavily on northern Chinese cuisine with a sampling of dishes from other Chinese regions. The area surrounding 31^st and Halsted is starting to become something of a Northern Chinese Chinatown, with Homestyle Taste and Northern City in the immediate vicinity.

We sat down and were immediately greeted with a small plate of spicy sprouts.  I always appreciate a complimentary “amuse bouche” to prepare my palate.  The sprouts had nice flavor with just a bit of spice. I have to say that I prefer the spicy mung beans offered at Northern City. 

Spicy Sprouts

The menu was massive and a bit of challenge to navigate. We started out with an order of the house special dumplings. We were all pretty hungry and these cigar shaped dumplings were pretty satisfying. The dumplings came with the typical spicy and salty dipping sauces.  The spicy sauce was my favorite component of the dish. It had a little bit of a smoky twist to it, almost as it were made with chipotle oil. The dumplings were pan fried and a little too greasy. This is one reason I normally prefer steamed dumplings. The filling was decent but the main selling point of the dumplings is that they served as an excellent vehicle for the chili condiment. 

House Dumplings

At Lizzie’s insistence, we decided to try the jelly fish salad. This consisted of a bunch of shredded jellyfish served atop a bed of finely julienned cucumbers.  It came dressed with a garlic and vinegar dressing. I didn’t taste any particular flavor from the jellyfish. The vinegar dressing was the most dominant flavor. This was a very light, refreshing dish. I could see this really hitting the spot on a hot summer day. It also worked well with our meal because it was the only thing we ordered that could be considered remotely light or healthy.

Jellyfish and Cucumber

I had read good things about the garlic eggplant so we had to give it a try. A very tasty dish, albeit one I’ve had a thousand times. The dish was very tasty and definitely got the job done. It just didn’t have anything unique or special that could differentiate it from all the other Chinese eggplant dishes I’ve tried.

Garlic Eggplant

I decided to try one of their northern-style casserole dishes. I opted for the pork belly casserole with cellophane noodles. The dish was very rich as expected. The pork belly itself was good but not great.  It could have been a bit more tender. Again, I would probably be in love with it had I not had Chairman Mao’s Favorite Pork Belly at Lao Hunan.  The cellophane noodles were satisfying, if a bit difficult to eat with chopsticks. 

Pork Belly Casserole w/ Cellophane Noodles

Lizzie got the mapo tofu. Mapo tofu is probably my favorite Sichuan dish. It’s basically silky soft tofu swimming in a bath of fiery chili sauce. It normally features the famous Sichuan numbing peppercorns which take your taste buds on a ride they won’t forget. This dish was a decent rendition of mapo tofu. I think after having Chef Tony’s version at Lao Szechuan, anything less fails to impress. The dish wasn’t nearly spicy enough and had barely any hint of numbing peppercorns. This is significantly better than what you normally get from a non-Sichuan restaurant but not anywhere near what Chef Tony delivers every night. 

Mapo Tofu

I felt really bad for Katie with her main course selection. We were looking at the menu and saw a seafood soup which looked good. The picture was deceptive to say the least. Unfortunately this dish was extremely bland. It reminded me of a similar soup I made the mistake of ordering at Lao Yunnan this past summer. This truly horrible dish was devoid of any hint of flavor. I don’t understand how with everything else on the menu being so flavorful, this dish had flavor similar to  luke warm pasta water.  

Seafood Soup

Overall, Ed’s Potsticker House was decent. I might have had a better experience had we ordered more dumplings or maybe tried the cumin lamb. I’m glad we tried this place but I will not be rushing back anything soon. There are just too many exceptional authentic regional Chinese restaurants in Chinatown/Bridgeport for me to waste time with anything that isn’t excellent.