Guang Yuan Tianjin Restaurant

The moment you walk into this place, you’ll be welcomed by the sound of xiangsheng (crosstalk) playing on the TV and the colorful menu taped onto the mirror wall. Guang Yuan specializes in food and snacks from Tianjin, a small but very popular city right next to Beijing. The city is also known for its famous pot stickers and jian bing guo zi (thin pancake with Chinese cruller inside), and Guang Yuan serves both, along with other authentic dishes like lamb soup, various buns, dumplings, pancakes, and noodles. The owner himself is from Tianjin and so are his family members — who are also the workers. They don’t really speak English so it might be kind of difficult if you don’t speak Mandarin.
The pot stickers here are GREAT, and definitely worth trying. They are not the same fried dumplings that people might be familiar with, these are the real deal from Tianjin. The ends of each dumpling are not closed and they are all connected with each other through the crispy bottom. The common chive ones are great, but I also recommend the green pepper flavored ones.
For the jian bing guo zi, unfortunately nothing will compare to the ones in Beijing/​China.
They also have a chef specifically for hand-​pulled noodles. I used to like Guang Yuan’s a lot until I found the Lan Zhou place in Golden Mall. I still come by regularly to get their frozen dumplings (50 for $ 10) for home, and this is definitely my favorite place for dumplings/​pot stickers.