Dumpling Wei

Come here for the dumplings. Especially the pork and crab dumplings. They are just as good as the best ones I’ve had. However their green beans and green onion pancakes weren’t as good. The orange chicken is different. I liked it and it’s different than at other places but the flavor is maybe too subtle but these have more meat than at Panda. They have a gender neutral restroom. Free parking available as well as meter parking.

Northern Cafe, located across from PCC on Colorado Blvd in Pasadena, has recently opened its doors to diners. The interior is nice and welcoming. The menu is smaller than the restaurants in SGV, but offers a delicious variety of dishes. We had ordered a few items from the menu, including eggplant with garlic sauce, xiao long bao, onion pancake, potstickers, and hand pulled cabbage. The food was delicious and flavorful, specially the eggplant with garlic sauce dish. The eggplant was well-cooked and savory. The pork potstickers were my favorite, with crispy skins and a yummy taste when dipped in vinegar. Prices are reasonable with range of $7 to $15. I can see why there seemed to be many students from the City College across the street are dining here. The service here is also very good as the servers were very attentive and helpful. They responded to my requests very quickly. With this new location, I had a positive experience at Northern Cafe in Pasadena. The food was tasty and flavorful, and the smaller menu did not detract from the quality of the dishes. If you're in the Pasadena area and looking for a new spot to try out, Northern Cafe might be worth a visit.

Northern Cafe used to be a delicious traditional chinese restaurant. Then it converted into a dumplings place around August 2023.. and it became a fast food place. Jack in the Box. We got some beef noodle soup and veggies. It's was just some steamed veggies in a sad plastic bowl and some uninspired beef and ramen noodles in a sad plastic bowl.

Service was quick but you had to get water yourself (despite there being workers on their phones) and everything was in plastic to-go containers. Prices were reasonable at first glance but you really get what you pay for. Hot and sour soup had a strange taste, dan dan noodles and shrimp wontons had no taste, xiao long bao were obviously frozen (tasted alright, but just go to a grocery store). Only thing I liked was the cold cucumber for $4.50. Wouldn't return.

Clean and comfortable. Plenty of seats. Friendly staff. The food was good and came in big portions with very reasonable prices. We two had the golden beef hot pot with rice and greens, and chili sauce chicken. Both were pretty flavorful.

Good Chinese spot. Inside is clean and modern. Decent amount of seating. Good for small groups. Service was good. Street parking up and down the block.

Very tasty, great noodle texture and tasty seasoning in all dishes. The beef noodle soup was excellent. Plenty of beef 🤌

I don’t know about other dishes they offer The beef dumplings was ass It was 2/10 It smells so bad. Even I could’ve done better

The restaurant is designed so nice on the inside. The food is outstanding. I am a big Din Tai Fung fan and this place beats their food. No line great service great food. I highly recommend you give it a try.

o2.o3.2o25 Celebrating Chinese New Year with some colleagues! We pre-order for pick up and was told it'll be ready before our requested pick up time, which it's fine with us. However, when we got there 5mins passed our pick up time, multiple dishes weren't even ready yet. We waited for an additional 15mins. That was ok, just that now our lunch time got shorter. Everything we ordered were all pretty good, esp the mapo tofu if you like spicy. Most of what we ordered comes with rice. The rice was a bit on the harder end.

I've been here several times now. They really have awesome soup dumplings. I believe you could buy them frozen which is cool They've got a nice little set up and it is usually busy because of the school across the street

Dumplings were solid, but took a long time and unfortunately that parking lot attached to this building is a nightmare took forever to park if the dumps came out really quick I would have nothing to say, but they were average at best and took forever to get them, They only had two people working in the whole store, which is unfortunate. The cashier was also helping in the kitchen, not a good look. I got the kimchi pork dumpling 12. The sauces are good nice variety, but honestly very average dumpling .

Boiled dumplings were mid, hot and sour soup is good but there's not a lot if stuff in it (egg drop, mushroom, etc). Kind of slow in serving the food. Spacious place though

Small dumpling spot with great prices. We ordered the pork soup dumplings, the crab and pork soup dumplings, beef rolls, shrimp spicy wonton, pork spicy wonton, mapo tofu and dan dan noodles. The pork and crab. Meat and pork soup dumplings in particular were savoryand clean with a burst of the broth. Dan dan noodles were unfortunately overcooked this time around and were sadly soggy and the shrimp spicy wonton also had an off taste. Overall a worthy dumpling spot!

Simple, clean, and efficient. You order at the counter and they bring it out to you at your table. We ordered the pan fried potstickers and the beef roll. Both were pretty good. The beef roll was HUGE. Prices were pretty fair, considering inflation these days. They actually rolled back on prices of some of their rice and noodle dishes -- unseen!!! I'd def come back.

Pork Noddle soup was delicious... The soup is kind of inside the noodle... hard to describe attaching photo. Service was good. Standard fast food ambience restaurant.

So far so good. Need sauces Needs more Salt and white pepper condiments etc Quality is there. More to come

Food is delicious. Nice view of PCC across the street. Place is clean and very nice upscale food to go or made to order.

Not sure why Northern Cafe has set up a different branding for its location across from Pasadena City College, particularly when the interior says Northern Cafe. But no doubt that they bring the goodness that Northern Cafe is known for. Their steamed pork bun is the biggest I've seen. Perfect for hungry college students.

Was happy I visited this local spot. Apparently it's frequented by students at PCC. I can tell why. Good prices, good serving sizes and food was delicious! I was craving mapo tofu and was not disappointed. Chicken was good too!

This review is regarding our second order from Dumpling Wei (the first order a few days ago dining-in; the food was generally good as was the service). On the strength of our first order, we decided to order again, this time online for pick-up as we were too busy to dine-in, and asked a friend to pick up our order on our behalf. We gave her a print out of the confirmation as proof of the order. When she arrived to pick up the order, she was told that the order had already been picked up by someone using my name. Our friend called us and we told the server that I had not picked up the order, but the server insisted I did! After much arguing back and forth for over 10 minutes including asking why I didn't pick up the order myself (which is irrelevant and nonsensical) and asking for the last 4 digits of my credit card (I would bet they didn't ask this of the guy who wrongly picked up the order), finally they grudgingly agreed to replace the order. All told, our friend spent almost an extra hour to pick up and deliver our order to us. Sad to say, the customer service was very rude and unprofessional and we will not be giving them any more of our business. Oh, I forgot to mention: The server claimed they had my signature on the credit card receipt as proof of pick up. We asked if our friend could take a picture of it and send it to us...sure they said. Here's the picture. The chicken scratchings are absolutely NOT my signature! Totally illegible so you can't identify who signed it. They need to do what Cluck2Go and Din Tai Fung do for pick up orders and ask for ID verification BEFORE handing over the order.

Friendly staff, bright clean eating area. Good food and service and prices were not unreasonable.

Great food, excellent soup dumplings, brought my family here to eat lunch! Will be back for sure! Nice and clean!

The food was priced well, but just ok. The service needs improvement; the person at the front counter could not answer questions about the place or the menu.

Excellent service , great tasty food, clean place . Such delicious food and fast service, thank you Dumpling Wei , we will be back ! Certainly will come back .

Absolutely excellent food. Very reasonable. Went today for first time. The young man manning the counter, taking orders, and delivering our food was phenomenal. Excellent service, clean and pleasant.

I'm so glad they brought the original menu back. Everything that was on the northern cafe menu is on dumpling wei's menu. Food is always good, staff is friendly, restaurant is clean and it's decently priced. I always come here for the garlic pork ribs and the mapo tofu. For both dishes the flavor is really good. Hopefully this place stays for awhile because it's one of my favorites around here for Chinese and I was missing my mapo tofu. I look forward to trying more dishes from here for those nights I don't feel like cooking.

Very cute atmosphere and great menu. Very nice staff. Their soup dumplings are scrumptious!! Sesame balls are crunchy, chewy & just right!

First time here, tasty, great prices, clean and comfortable environment. I can see this would be a great place for a quick lunch, perfect for PCC peeps.

The beef roll and chili wonton are excellent! It is very busy during lunchtime since it is right across the street from PCC.