Welcome to the Eater Atlanta food crawl series, where Eater’s editor and contributors take readers on a virtual tour of dishes at restaurants around Atlanta. When Eater dines out, it’s often done as a team, with a specific dish, style of cuisine, or neighborhood in mind. These crawls are meant to be relatively walkable or easily driven, and the amount of food manageable enough for around four people.
Email Eater Atlanta with a particular food crawl theme, dish, drink, or neighborhood needing coverage in a future installment of this series.
Name a cuisine, and Buford Highway probably has it — right down to the micro-region within a particular country. Atlantans are fortunate to have access to the world of food available along this road, which stretches from just within the city limits north into Gwinnett County.
For this updated dumpling crawl, the Eater Atlanta team traveled to a handful of restaurants along Buford Highway and New Peachtree Road in Chamblee and Doraville.
Chengdu-style dumplings at Good Luck Gourmet
5750 Buford Highway NE, Doraville
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Located in the former Gu’s Bistro space at Doraville Plaza, this restaurant offers both Shaanxi cuisine and Sichuan classics on its menu. That includes the fiery Chengdu-style dumplings. The dozen or so pork dumplings come served in a pool of red chile oil. It’s a great way to kick off a family-style meal here.
Other dishes to order: Shaanxi-style cold noodles, twice-cooked pork, spicy boiled fish filet, and spicy fried eggplant
Pork hand-pulled noodles and fried pot stickers and xiao long bao (soup dumplings) at LanZhou Ramen
5231 Buford Highway NE, Doraville
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LanZhou Ramen resides at the Pine Tree Plaza shopping center just down from Supermarket Chicago. This is where to head for heaping plates of long-as-your-arm, hand-pulled noodles. The Eater Atlanta team eats here often, indulging in pork hand-pulled noodles or the pork noodle soup paired with fried pot stickers and steamy soup dumplings.
Other dishes to order: Duck hand-pulled noodle soup, fried pork buns, and the family-sized Xinjiang stir-fried chicken with sliced noodles.
Fill the table with dumplings at Northern China Eatery
5141 Buford Highway NE, Doraville
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Northern China Eatery does not lack in dumplings on its menu. This small restaurant is where to head to fill the table with everything from pork and chive dumplings and pork and fennel dumplings to steamy baskets of plump xiao long bao. Pro tip: Northern China Eatery includes a frozen dumpling section for those wishing to make the restaurant’s dumplings at home.
Other dishes to order: Cumin lamb skewers, Chongqing spicy chicken, and Mandarin lions head pork meatball
Late-night dumplings at Beijing Kabobs
5090 Buford Highway NE, Doraville
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If out past 11 p.m. on Buford Highway, Beijing Kabobs is a great spot for late night dumplings. Eater indulges in dumplings here at all hours. This includes the restaurant’s sour cabbage, pork and leek, and lamb and green onion dumplings. Most dumplings come by the dozen, so come hungry or with a crew.
Other dishes to order: Kebobs, including the lamb charcoal bake, fish ball charcoal bake, and sausage charcoal bake.
Dumplings galore at China Kitchen and New Lan Zhou Noodle at Atlanta Chinatown
5383 New Peachtree Road, Chamblee
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The final stop on this food crawl is China Kitchen and New Lan Zhou Noodle at Atlanta Chinatown mall food court on New Peachtree Road. China Kitchen offers a variety of dumplings on its expansive menu, including baskets of xiao long bao, listed as Shanghai juicy buns, and a dozen spicy and saucy “Master” dumplings. Over at New Lan Zhou Noodle, order a bowl of the pork rib hand-pulled noodle soup and steamed pork and cabbage dumplings.
Other dishes to order: Old Beijing-style dry noodles at China Kitchen; Roast duck hand-pulled noodles and hot and spicy beef hand-pulled noodles at New Lan Zhou Noodle.