Journey To The Dumpling — Restaurant in Elk Grove

Looking for place that serves good dumplings that I could take my son to, this place came up as a recommendation. We showed up on a Sunday, which apparently aren't busy days for the restaurant as noted by the staff, however they made this comment in surprise at how busy it was that particular Sunday. My son and I were told 15 minutes until seating would be available. We're patient folk, so we waited outside the establishment. We were summoned back in barely 10 minutes later and seated at a table against one wall of the dining area, where one of many TVs was situated. This TV happened to be showing Cartoon Network, so both my son and I were thoroughly entertained while we looked through the menu. The wait staff were kind, cheerful, helpful, and easy to talk to. They made the entire experience comfortable and deserve high praise and higher tips. I ordered a beef roll appetizer while my son was still deciding what he wanted to try. The beef roll showed up, and it was really really good. Two warm, flaky rolls filled with beef, various greens and onions and brought together with a lightly sweet sesame paste were cut into thirds and could easily serve up to three normal people, or in our case a small 10 year old and myself. It came time for dumplings to be ordered, and my son had settled on the pork soup dumplings. I asked for their snow crab pork soup dumplings, but due to the aforementioned surprising volume of customers that day, they had run out of crab. I had had a feeling that was going to be the case so I planned ahead and opted for the siu mai dumplings, a shrimp filled dumpling, so I still got some seafood on my plate. When the dumplings arrived, they were presented in traditional steamer baskets and revealed to hold 8 of each dumpling ordered. I had to teach my son how to handle the soup filled dumplings, but he quickly got the hang of it and managed to get through 5 of them between staring at cartoons. I got into my siu mai and found them to be exactly what I was hoping for. Tender wrapper housing plump, juicy shrimp and a host of other ingredients made for a delicious and easy to eat dumpling. I conquered them in no time. My son relinquished his remaining 3 soup dumplings to me. Seeing as how I hate to be wasteful but also finding myself to be nearly full, I took them but hesitated to eat them. A quick sip of water settled me down and I got into the dumplings. Going from the shrimp to pork soup was a dramatic shift, but one that didn't feel heavy or overwhelming. I easily ate the remaining soup dumplings and found myself wishing to order some to go, but held myself back. Tl;dr these are really good dumplings, and worth any...

The reality is, every moment a visitor interacts with your establishment, leads to judgment about your brand "Journey to the Dumpling". Yvonne, it is nice to meet you again. Today, I can't express in words how I felt standing there becoming subtly impatient only to then watch a sitting customer, standup then walks over to where I was standing and get the attention of your staff just by her standing beside me. The situation was escalated the moment your employee came to the front and assisted her instead. He then completed her financial transaction while my order sat right beside him on the to-go table. Still, he didn't take the opportunity to greet me as I was disregarded when he quickly returned to his other duties at the far side of the restaurant. Everyone pays attention to the front of the establishment, that's where the door is as well as your cash register.

In your reply, you mentioned that your staff was "consumed with finishing up a busy lunch service preparing for a busy dinner service". You clarified why I was purposefully ignored. Not by one of your staff members but by each of them that walked by and interacted with the front register area where I was standing. However, it does not clarify why another person was assisted during my wait and not me.

The marginalization of some groups dilutes the beauty and centrality of Elk Grove as a whole, as it excludes groups due to race, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, physical ability, and/or immigration status who want to be treated as normal people.

I am NOT asking you to give me what I want, how I want it, at the lowest price, extra fast and make me feel special, or I'll buy from someone else. I am simply asking for the same attention to detail everyone wants during your available business hours. As I am a very reasonable consumer and local business owner right here in Elk Grove, there will be another opportunity for me to update my experience with your establishment Journey...

Here are the foods that I got at Journey to the Dumpling in Elk Grove! The first thing I got were the pork soup dumplings, and I have heard people compare them to other places such as Din Tai Fung’s, so I was really excited to try them out! They were big and almost couldn’t fit into my soup spoon, and I do have to admit that they do taste a little similar to DTF, they’re not exactly on the same level’s to DTF‘s since the dumpling kept falling apart and was a little messy, but they were still delicious. I would say that the closeness and similarity and taste would be may be like a 9 out of 10. I think personally I would prefer DTF’s, but if I was in the Sacramento area and I REALLY was craving some good quality soup dumplings without driving too much, then I think these soup dumplings would still hit the spot. Next, we got mushroom dumplings, I think? They did have a weird brown outside covering, which I was a little scared about, but it wasn’t too bad! For the inside, it did come with some mushrooms, but it wasn’t anything too special. I wouldn’t probably get these again, but they were still okayyy, like they weren’t a dish that was inedible and super bad. Lastly, we got the leaf wrapped dish that came with some rice that tasted pretty sweet and came with the chicken inside. It was pretty good and I don’t think it was a total waste of our money, but I wouldn’t probably get this dish again due to the price. Like the mushroom dumplings, it was okay and edible, but it wasn’t anything to mind blowning or special. The shop was pretty...