Lao Bei Fang Dumpling House

The name means "old north," and the cooking follows it: wheat, not rice — dumplings and hand-pulled noodles — at a plain storefront on the Broadway strip near the Elmhurst Avenue station. It has been an inexpensive lunch for the neighborhood for years.

Order pork and chive dumplings, fried or boiled, by the plate, then a bowl of hand-pulled noodles — the lamb noodle soup and beef noodle soup are the regular orders — and something cold and sharp on the side. A quick, cheap meal on the way somewhere else.