New month, new lunch! The school cafeteria served a new lunch item last week Friday. Potstickers filled the students’ hungry appetites on the first day of the new month. 

The dumplings pleasantly surprised some students and even some teachers. 

“It was good. It was the first time I bought lunch this year,” business teacher Joelle Kramer said. “I was excited for today’s lunch. and I am pleasantly surprised.” 

This was echoed by some students as well. 

Junior Waimea Nailiili rated it a solid 7.5 out of 10. He said it could use a little more seasoning and a better sauce, but overall, he enjoyed it. 

The new item was part of a program which creates and tests new dishes for use in school lunches. The dumplings came already prepared and all the school cafeteria had to do was heat it up.

Traditional potstickers are first pan-fried and then steamed using water. However, the method used to heat up the dumplings only involved steaming. The filling inside the dumplings also differed from the traditional style. Instead of being a pork filling, it was chicken.

“I liked it. I was shocked that it wasn’t pork, it was chicken,” cafeteria cook Nicole Nishikawa said. 

Culinary teacher Justine Perkins said she was not able to try the potstickers herself, but said it looked good. She added that some of her students asked her for shoyu to replace or supplement the honey sriracha dipping sauce from the buffet line.

Nishikawa said she was excited that the new item was a hit with the students. The cafeteria served 838 six-count trays of dumplings. In fact, she anticipates that the next time they serve this item, the lunch count will be higher for that day. She said that usually, when a new item has good taste, it sells more the second time because students get feedback from other students about the new items.