Despite the extensive attention paid to this place over the years, reading over this thread, it occurs to me that there are several things about it not mentioned here: It is not, in fact, called "Ed's Potsticker House" anywhere on its
exterior or on the menu; the sign reads "Pot Sticker House." There are currently two menus, a fancier large one with photos and a smaller, laminated one, with more options; there is some duplication and I have not done detailed comparison, but both are in English, although the explanations can be sketchy. The interior is simply decorated, but compared to many Chinatown storefronts, pristine and positively elegant.
On second thought, this probably wasn't the best place to go with my particular dining companions of the other day: One doesn't care for poultry. The other won't eat seafood, lamb, duck or mushrooms and tends to distrust vegetable mixtures (vegetables are OK, but only one at a time); offal, of course, is entirely out. Oh, and both of them dislike fatty foods and meat on the bone, particularly hacked up into bits as the Chinese commonly do. (Dining Companion #2 was frankly outraged the first time he encountered this, also in my company.)
In fact, we had planned to go to Lao Sze Chuan, but they were lined up out the door and there wasn't a parking place to be had. I'm not sure that would have been much improvement, given the issues here.
We started with the house potstickers, soup dumplings (called on the menu "Shanghai-style pork dumpling") and smoked-pork cake, which have all been written up here many times and were quite as expected, except that no one brought us any hoisin sauce for the pancakes. I'm a fan of the cigar-shaped potstickers, and while I agree with the folks who think the wrappers on the dumplings tend to be a bit thick and the filling a little bland, I don't know anywhere else in town that does better ones. DC1 and I enjoyed everything; DC2 liked the potstickers.
Since many of my favorite dishes were ruled out, the entrees were all things that I hadn't tried before. The best dish, to my taste, was the stir-fried preserved pork and Chinese sausage Hunan-style, although it was not exactly what we expected, being mostly fresh lotus root and smoked tofu, with a sprinkling of black beans, bits of pickled vegetable and shavings of sweet Chinese sausage, a lovely combination of crunchy, soft, smoky, salty and sweet. (I'm not actually sure where the pork part came in and I wonder if that's a mistranslation.) DC2 wouldn't even try it until I told him the lotus root was a something like potato, but he remained unconvinced.
DC2 was going to have twice-cooked pork, which he thought would be safe, but then the waitress told him it was pork belly and would be fatty, so he switched to shredded pork with onion and soybean paste, the next item on the list, which proved an unhappy choice. DC1 enjoyed it the most, but the sauce gave the pork a rather slimy mouthfeel that none of us liked, and the meat came atop a bed of long strips of raw scallions, green part only.
DC1 prepared himself to lump it so we could order a third dish that DC2 would eat, so we got chicken with hot pepper and bamboo shoots, after first determining that it would not be chicken on the bone. Instead it is little nuggets of deep-fried white meat, mildly spicy, with bamboo shoots and chunks of squash, which I found a little dry and dull, but that's the type of chicken DC1 is most prepared to like, so he was happy enough and DC2 liked it as well, but something tells me he's going to be reluctant to eat Chinese food with me, ever again.