It's a widely known fact that Chinese people love mahjong, and have an appetite for sweet dumplings. One restaurant owner in Lanzhou, Southwest China's Gansu Province, has combined these two favorites to create the "mahjong dumplings," winning over thousands of netizens' hearts, and stomachs. Screenshot of video by Pear Video on Sina Weibo.

It's a widely known fact that Chinese people love mahjong, and have an appetite for sweet dumplings. One restaurant owner in Lanzhou, Southwest China's Gansu Province, has combined these two favorites to create the "mahjong dumplings," winning over thousands of netizens' hearts, and stomachs, on China's social media platforms. 

The sesame-stuffed sweet dumplings are made into rectangular shapes and then carved with Chinese characters or patterns in the same style as mahjong pieces.  

"The idea came to my mind when I was playing mahjong with my family during the pandemic. We did lots of experiments in the past half year before finally succeeding," the restaurant owner, surnamed Yang, told Pear Video on Tuesday.

It normally takes two people three hours to make the dumplings, and about one hour to draw a whole pack of mahjong, which contains 42 pieces, Yang explained, adding that they use food coloring to draw the patterns so they are safe to eat. 

Despite the complicated procedure of making these dumplings, they only cost 2 yuan ($0.3) each, according to the restaurant.

Global Times