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Matzah ball soup dumplings, a mashup of Ashkenazi and Asian cuisines, are on offer at this Brooklyn eatery
(New York Jewish Week) – What do you get when you combine two of New York City’s most iconic foods, matzah ball soup and Chinese dumplings? You get exactly what it sounds like: a mouth-watering franken-nosh that’s at once familiar and innovative.
Matzah ball soup dumplings can be found at Brooklyn’s Lucky Rabbit Noodles, a 300-square-foot spot in Dumbo that’s quite literally underneath the roaring traffic of the Manhattan Bridge on the corner of Plymouth Street and Anchorage Place.
The dish, according to Lucky Rabbit’s owner and chef, Jeremy Dean, is inspired by his love of matzah ball soup. “If I’m at a diner, I’m ordering matzah ball soup,” Dean told the New York Jewish Week, explaining that the classic Ashkenazi comfort dish is one of his favorite New York foods. “I don’t have any Jewish affiliation or anything.”
At Lucky Rabbit — which serves all types of Asian-inspired noodle dishes — the matzah ball soup dumplings are served four to an order for $6. The innovative dish includes four dumplings, made with dumpling wrappers sourced from just over the bridge in Chinatown, that are filled with crumbled housemade matzah balls, ground chicken, onion, carrots and celery before being steamed in their own mini-tin. Upon cooking, chicken broth is ladled over the dumplings and its all topped with dill and fried shallots.
Dean told the New York Jewish Week that he’d tried the matzah ball ramen at Williamsburg’s Jewish-Japanese restaurant Shalom Japan and was inspired to play with that Asian-Ashkenazi flavor combination. “It’s kind of a different take on that,” he said.
Though they are called “soup dumplings,” Lucky Rabbit’s version isn’t made like traditional Chinese soup dumplings (xiao long bao), where the broth is wrapped inside the dumpling paper.
“I try to stay away from authentic things,” Dean said. “I had the authentic soup dumpling, xiao long bao, on the menu for a minute but I wanted to make the flavors a little different anyway.” He added that xiao long bao are very complicated to make — and he’s been the only employee for two of the three years he’s been running the business. (In the last year, a dishwasher and second chef have joined the team.)
Before Lucky Rabbit, Dean, who is Mexican and Salvadoran, ran Vodega, a vegan deli and bodega in the same spot for several months in 2020. He transformed the space into Lucky Rabbit in early 2021, partly because he felt like there wasn’t a lot of great Asian food in the neighborhood, where he’s lived for 13 years.
The dining scene in the formerly industrial, now upscale neighborhood has been shifting in recent years: Food hall Time Out Market opened in May 2019, while a new Israeli restaurant, Nina, opened in Dumbo in November.
At Lucky Rabbit, the matzah ball soup dumplings have been popular, Dean said — just that morning, a couple had placed an order for 300 dumplings that they could keep in their freezer.
On the evening of the New York Jewish Week’s visit earlier this week, Jewish comedian Liz Glazer happened to be in the restaurant to try the dumplings herself. “First, I’m just appreciating the dill and the fried onions,” she said. “I imagine this is going to be like a big texture party.”
“It tastes like matzah ball soup and I love that it has the crispy onion — my mom’s [soup] didn’t have that,” she said after trying a bite. “This is great. It’s a real fusion.”
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The post Matzah ball soup dumplings, a mashup of Ashkenazi and Asian cuisines, are on offer at this Brooklyn eatery appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.