Dumpling Kingdom’s grand gates

While playing West Village hide-and-go-seek, a creative player could enter Dumpling Kingdom, hunch over a dumpling combo, and remain unnoticed for the remainder of the round. This restaurant is what yelpers call ‘a hidden gem’ of the city, marked only by the green and yellow logo beckoning observant prospective customers in. The door was left ajar to allow the pleasing scents to waft from the open kitchen into the outside. Students from the nearby NYU frequent the store, happy to apply a college discount.

The menus, like the restaurant, are crinkly yet endearing, and are decorated with appetizing, colorful photos of the soon-to-be-devoured food.

When I visited Dumpling Kingdom, the day was fresh and the restaurant cozy enough to ignore the construction blaring obnoxiously outside. The young lady working the register and compiling the meals was kind and informative; she pointed out the favorite dishes for me and my colleague to taste: wonton soup with spicy sauce, scallion pancakes, and a champion dumpling combo.

As we waited for our meal, I watched as curious passersby wandered in, young Asian students rendezvoused, and the delivery man bustled in and out, arms burdened with happy-faced bags. The small eating space, simply adorned with local posters, maneki neko, labeled photos of dishes, announcements, and discounts, not only met health and sanitation standards, but also invoked a sense of simple community. The tables, albeit small and cramped against the wall, had the ability to create an intimacy between patrons. I was delighted to see folks of many different races stop before the restaurant, sniff the air, and give a curious look before entering and ultimately ordering some dumplings.

The Kingdom’s favorite dishes, all appealing photographed.

Shortly after ordering, our food was passed into our hands. Spicy wonton soup was a new concept to me – the dumplings floating in the red soup wore a thin dough, dripped orange and red, and, while not unbearable, had the ability to clear any sinus. The famous Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce and Kikkoman Soy Sauce were available, the former enhancing the eastern spice.

Scallion pancakes were a perfect follow-up to the spicy wonton soup. The pancake crust were enveloped around a doughy center layer, which had scallions baked in. As compared to the wonton soup, the taste was oniony and grounding.

Finally, the dumplings. The champion combo includes pork chive, pork cabbage, chicken, jade, and seafood dumplings. The dough of these dumplings was thicker and chewier than those of the wonton soup. Each dumpling was perfectly sized into two-bite pieces, and was meticulously molded to have a rounded shape. Upon my biting into one particular dumpling, the tasty juices squirted out. Each kind of dumpling tasted appropriate for its name, although none stood out as amazing.

The menus, like the restaurant, are crinkly yet endearing, and are decorated with appetizing, colorful photos of the soon-to-be-devoured food.

Dumpling Kingdom was more of a humble abode than a kingdom. This fact is not negative, but rather, endearing. It is home to local folks, NYU students, and passersby of any race. Despite its shortcomings – Styrofoam containers could be replaced with homey plates, bare walls could stand to be a little more decorated – the restaurant has that New York ‘hidden gem’ appeal and boasts a variety of appetizing dishes, from dumplings to classic entrees like General Tso’s chicken. Dumpling Kingdom was a charming experience, and a great alternative to dining hall food.

Dumpling Kingdom is located on 227 Sullivan Avenue, near Washington Square Park. NYU students get a 10% discount. Deliveries are free if more than $10 worth of food is ordered. Search for Dumpling Kingdom on the Campus Clipper website!

ChristelleMarie Chua

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Below are several quotes from current college students & interns from the Campus Clipper. The Campus Clipper has provided New York’s more than 600,000 students with an easy way to save money in the local area where they study and work. Students are invited to explore New York armed with a pocket-size discount coupon book that saves them cash on products and services offered by merchants. Each semester, several students are selected to intern at the Campus Clipper and gain valuable experience in social media, networking, marketing, advertising, writing, publishing, design and much more! Read more about the Campus Clipper Here!

The students have been participating in podcasts with me for several weeks; offering tips and advice to current college students & career seekers and to help people tell their story and do what they love!

“My advice is, don’t wait till your senior year to get internships or to get to know your professors and faculty. Even if you feel there are more qualified upperclassmen ahead of you, don’t discourage yourself from trying. You might not get the internships but you get to practice going on interviews. You want to get a tentative foot into the real world as early on as possible. It might help you determine if your major is the right on for you in time for you to reconsider if you have to. You don’t want to have to make a big transition. You want to ease into the working world and be confident you are going to do well at your job. Start getting into the habit of being organized with little things because they will save you big time and money. Also be sure to balance social life and school. Those grades still matter and it might require just doing a little more. There’s a big difference between B+ and A- when it comes to numeric average.

You also want to use your time in college to promote your interests whether it be raising awareness for a charitable cause or educating people on an issue that’s important to you. As a college student you have a wealth of resources available to you. You have the guidance of faculty and an easily reachable community of like minded people. College is a place where you can empower your own voice and create memorable experiences that may serve you for the rest your life.” – Margael St Juste, Hunter College

“It’s important to get to know as many people as you can; not only that, but to get to know them as well as you can. Friends, coworkers, professors, advisors – all of these people have valuable experience and connections that may one day be able to help you attain your dream job or goals. Join clubs, attend meetings, go to job fairs, etc. Any way you can meet and get to know quality things about quality people can only help you in the future.” – Nancy Ma, NYU

“Introduce yourself to people.
I know that freshmans can feel very shy and intimidated but taking initiative to introduce yourself to people can help you overcome the shy factor as well as getting more comfortable with the social atmosphere. This can also be practice for official conferences and events in the future where introducing yourself to potential employers can make you stand out. Speaking about the socializing topic, networking and maintaining a large connection of professional networks is very important. You never know who you can meet and how they can help you in your career. Of course, this advice isn’t only limited to freshmans but I feel like this is something very important that people who are just starting to get their foot into the career world need to hear about.” – Jessica Yang, Parsons New School of Design

“My advice for college freshman is: don’t procrastinate! Proper time management is the key to using your time as best as possible.  If you find yourself not having enough time for social events and school work it’s because you still haven’t gotten time management down yet.  However, that’s OK! Freshman year is always a challenge and perseverance is the key!” – Paola Delucca, Parsons New School of Design

“Try as much as possible to get a lot of internships. Apply for two internships (one unpaid and the other a paid one) every semester if you can. Sometimes it’s hard to get two paid internships at the same time. If ever you get a paid one and you want another internship consider getting an unpaid internship so at least at one point you get more experience and of course some extra cash at the same time!” – Moyl Cledera, The New School for Public Engagement

Visit thelivingcalendar.com for more tips and advice from Arielle Fiffer  – College/Career Advisor

Follow the Campus Clipper on Twitter and Like us on Facebook!

Interested in more deals for students? Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter to get the latest in student discounts and promotions  and follow our Tumblr and Pinterest. For savings on-the-go, download our printable coupon e-book!

Telling your Unique Story

Each college requires a personal statement along with your application. Be prepared to write and re-write your story, and have it looked at many times.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

1. What makes you and your life story unique/impressive?

2. What are your career goals?

3. Have you had to overcome any obstacles so far throughout your life?

4. What skills and experience do you have?

Tips:

• Tell a Story

• Give specifics to keep the admissions committee interested

• Make a compelling case

• Start Out Strong – Just as employers may not have time to read your whole resume, the college admissions’ team may not be able to read your whole story

• Be Creative; Do not begin with a generic first sentence such as “My life has been very challenging because _______”

• Pick a topic you are passionate about

• Self Promote – but, don’t over do it, your story will sell itself

Visit thelivingcalendar.com for more tips and advice from Arielle Fiffer  – College/Career Advisor

Follow the Campus Clipper on Twitter and Like us on Facebook!

Interested in more deals for students? Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter to get the latest in student discounts and promotions  and follow our Tumblr and Pinterest. For savings on-the-go, download our printable coupon e-book!

Two resounding characters come up each and every time I bring up the Avengers, Steve Rodgers/Captain America and Tony Stark/Iron Man. Both have successful movie adaptations, very successful, which have raked in millions of dollars in capital, and millions of new fans. There is something about these characters that resounds within my generation of people.

To put it into prospect a Forbes article detailed Captain America’s Second movie debut, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier earned $41.4 million on its second weekend. It’s a good thing the film ended up number one for the weekend, because otherwise it would have magically become a super flop and Captain America 3 would have fled for the safety of a mid-August debut. In all seriousness, the hope was that sterling word-of-mouth and strong reviews would perhaps stem the traditional second weekend bleeding just a bit. But nope, it’s a 56% drop in viewership the second weekend come hell or high water. In terms of weekend drops, 57-60% is the general average among Marvel stand-alone entries outside of Thor (-47%) and Iron Man (-48%), so I guess a 56% drop qualifies as “leggy” by comparison.”

Eighteen year olds, like myself, feel a certain amount of invincibility, and the heroism of the Avengers certainly appeals in that respect. But looked for a deeper analysis, I realized that the Avengers the evil nature of the world as defeatable, and isn’t that reality that everyone is searching for.

We want to believe that our actions are working towards the betterment of society, which both Steve Rodgers and Tony Stark do within their installments. At the root of Avengers is a humanism that I did not expect with all the fantastical elements that surrounds the production. Whether the characters actually cause a difference within our society is what will be the discussion of this series of articles.