French Onion Soup Dumplings: The Stanton Social

Random texts from mom: "Have you hears if Stanton Social in NYC? They serve a French Onion Dumpling Soup that looks to die for.  You might check it out.  it's some chef's favorite appetizer."

With a stunning review like that, how could I not make a pit stop while in the city?  And after stalking the restaurant via the interwebs, I found out two things.  One, this place looked amazing.  And two, she was close... soup dumplings, not dumpling soup.

Plus, the undertone of her message was this.  I would like to try said restaurant, but only if it's good, because it's on the Lower East Side, somewhere I do not often travel.  So if you could please vet the situation for me, that would be fabulous!

The Stanton Social specializes in tapas-esq small plates (they refrain from using the word tapas as their menu isn't limited to the Spanish regions).  On our waiter's recommendation we ordered 4 dishes between the two of us.  

We started with the Warm Doughnuts with Caramel [$9], as my boyfriend has a definite sweet tooth.  The sugar coated warm balls of dough came out at the perfect temperature for the below freezing (remember I AM a cali girl... anything below 30 is freezing) weather outside.  And the ooey-gooey caramel was cooked down to a nice burnt sugar consistency that wasn't too sweet and complimented the doughnuts perfectly.

After the sweets, we moved onto the Breakfast Bruschetta - soft scrambled eggs, ovendried tomatoes & asiago on warm crusty bread [$9]. A nice little amuse between courses, this cleansed our palate nicely & prepped us for the rest of the savory.  It wasn't anything spectacular, but fit well in our selections.

On my friend's recommendation we just HAD to order the Potato & Goat Cheese Pierogies caramelized onions & truffle creme fraiche [$9].  This may have been my favorite dish of the brunch!  The pierogies melted in your mouth, and the truffle creme fraiche was so smooth I could have eaten it on everything.  Including the doughnuts from earlier! 

And finally, we got to the plate du jour... French Onion Soup Dumplings [$12].  Extremely interesting, each dumpling tasted like the perfect spoonful of soup.  Encased in a buttery dough, the stewed onions generally found at the bottom of the soup captured the salty & sweet, and the heavy helping of melted Gruyere and Parmesan made a nice crust on top.  I could have done without the crouton... it didn't add much to the dish, but I thoroughly enjoyed this deconstructed dish!  Well worth the trek to the LES!

The Stanton Social
99 Stanton Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 995-0099
www.thestantonsocial.com