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The East Village has its Dumpling Man, and now the Flatiron district has its dumpling lady: Anita Lo, the Chinese-American force behind Greenwich Village’s breezily elegant Annisa. Her user-friendly menu at Rickshaw is built around a half-dozen dumplings, and encourages customers to supersize their orders with a pointedly un-Chinatownish mixed-greens salad, or a designated dressed-up noodle soup. The dumplings themselves, showcased in steamer baskets behind the spic-and-span kitchen’s glass walls, are plump and tender, adroitly made, and filled with ingredients that are fresh and tasty, if at times too timidly seasoned. Order them steamed (good) or fried (better), à la carte or in soup; it takes longer to peruse the selection of dumplings and accoutrements than it does, seemingly, to cook them. There’s a vegetarian option and a low-carb one, too (the classic pork filling is wrapped in tofu skin instead of dough) plus drinks like icy green-tea milk shakes and refreshingly uncloying “watermelonade.” And even dumpling purists allergic to stylish décor and thumping music can’t deny that Lo’s lethal chocolate-soup dumplings—deep-fried bundles of black sesame mochi oozing melted chocolate and Plugrá butter—make the fast-food world an infinitely better place. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld

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• Cheap Eats Guide 2006 (8/7/06)