Green Chopsticks Food Tour

Writers Jamie, Jeanne and my family go on a food tour!!!  We were all invited to a very special food factory, “Green Chopsticks" which is headquartered in Alhambra, CA.  We toured their kitchen where delicious dumplings are made in a state of the art facility. 

In order to go inside the dumpling kitchen, we first had gone through a total body sanitizing process.  We washed our hands, put on our white sanitary coats, hair hats and went through an air closet which removed any unwanted particles on our body.  We then stepped into a cleaning agent to cleanse our shoes and off we went.  We were sanitized from top to bottom in a matter of minutes.

Walking into the facility, the temperature was North Pole cold.  Inside, the floor was specially made for this state of the art kitchen to maintain a clean and safe environment.  We were all very impressed with how they cared about their food handling standards.  Image a place that is completely sealed with little magical elves that come and clean every minute of the day. It was the cleanest place any of us had ever experienced.

We soon made it to the start of the assembly line to see how they make kitchen magic.

The dumpling process was broken up in teams.  There was the dough making process, the fresh vegetable process, the fresh meat process, the final assembly and the cooking / freezing process bringing all the ingredients together.  The whole operation was incredible to watch. The kids were shocked to see the entire process.

We watched how workers mixed the dough.  It was then placed in a roll and was set in a heavy duty machine to cut the outside of dumpling. The vegetable processing area, the vegetables consisted of green cabbage, onions, garlic and leek.  They were washed, cut and mixed with other ingredients such as soy sauce, sesame oil, evaporated cane juice, salt, oyster sauce and black pepper.  Next, we saw the meat processing area.  The meat was fresh and cut in the kitchen into tiny pieces.  Nothing was pre-cut or frozen and only fresh ingredients went into the dumplings.

After watching the dumplings being assembled, they were placed on a special machine where they were lined up and steamed.  We sampled the finished product as the dumplings marched on to be prepared for freezing and packaging.  The whole process taught us the care that went into preparing these delicious dumplings.

Yum, Yum!

Green Chopsticks dumplings can be bought at Gourmet Markets such as Gelson's Market, Bristol Farms, Wholesome Choice and Costco Roadshows.

Dumplings marching to the store near you!