Soon You Can Eat More Dumplings in Central Square

Dumpling House — not to be confused with the nearby Dumpling Room — appears to be nearing an opening in the former tea house portion of the shuttered Greater Boston Buddhist Cultural Space on Massachusetts Ave. in Central Square. The opening date for the 96-seat restaurant is unknown, but a tipster sent in the photo above and noted that the awning was going up yesterday. Signs in the windows indicate that it'll open "soon," and fingers crossed that'll feature soup dumplings like its "gourmet" cousin in Chinatown.

That's right — there's a connection to the similarly named Gourmet Dumpling House. Licensing hearing minutes reveal that several of the Dumpling House partners are also involved with the popular Chinatown spot. In other connections, the Dumpling House manager used to work at the shuttered Maluken in Kenmore Square.

For now, the restaurant will not have beer and wine; when the owners applied for the license over the summer, the board convinced them to withdraw the request due to lack of experience. At a later hearing for a common victualler license, condo owners in the same building expressed concerns that the restaurant would try again for beer and wine in the future, so it's likely the restaurant will face opposition down the road. In an attempt to appease the neighbors, the Dumpling House owners agreed to a 10pm closing time daily.

UPDATE: A Chowhound user posts a translation for the Chinese text on the awning: "South and North Homeland."
· All coverage of Dumpling House on Eater [~EBOS~]