Clear your appetite — the BC Dumpling Festival is back this weekend, and if past years are anything to go by, you’re going to want to show up hungry.
The festival brings together dumpling-slinging vendors from across Vancouver’s food scene in one spot — a lineup that usually spans Chinese jiaozi and xiao long bao, Japanese gyoza, Korean mandu, Nepalese momos, Ukrainian pierogi, and Italian ravioli, among others. Exact vendor lineup and hours for this edition weren’t confirmed at post time, so it’s worth checking the festival’s own listings before you head out.
Why a dumpling festival, specifically, works so well here
Dumplings are one of those rare foods that basically every culinary tradition has its own version of — which makes a dumpling festival almost accidentally the perfect format for a city as food-diverse as Vancouver. Instead of a single-cuisine street festival, you get a genuine cross-section of the city’s food culture, side by side, united by the fact that everyone, everywhere, apparently agreed independently that wrapping food in dough and cooking it was a good idea.
It’s also the kind of event that tends to pack out fast once word gets around, so if dumplings are your love language, don’t sleep on this one.
What’s your go-to dumpling order — classic pork and chive, or are you a momo person through and through? Let us know in the comments. 👀
