They’re pretty good to me dipped in sweet and sour sauce, so fi on thee for cursing them!
Crab rangoon is one of my wife’s go-to appetizers when we get Chinese food. It’s on the menu at pretty much every Chinese restaurant I’ve seen in the Midwest.
Why have I never seen crab rangoon on a NYC Chinese menu? All I get is “Jellyfish Head w/Sesame Oil,” “Salt Baked Silver Fish,” “Fresh Clams, Sponge Gourd & Tofu Soup,” “Sea Cucumber & Goose Web Casserole.”
I must travel to New Jersey or Long Island and find me a Chinese restaurant for white people. Gotta try this crab rangoon.
I despise cream cheese- except in wontons.
My “dessert” at the local Chinese place is cream cheese wontons liberally sprinkled with brewed soy sauce. Something about the interplay of the soy and the cream cheese is just divine.
Another monster weighing in. Love crab rangoon, and when we order the appetizer platter, I get all of them!
The only thing wrong with them is that when they appear, it is inevitable that it means that the resturant will kill off old-style wonton (the kind that have a lump of bbq pork inside).
WHY MUST THERE BE A CONFLICT?? Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could have both at once?
I haven’t seen them on the West Coast or Hawaii, but I have had cream cheese wontons in Minnesota and South Carolina. The SC ones offered duck sauce (which was a novelty for me) and ranch dressing for dipping. They’re fine, but they are Americanized food sensibilities packaged as “exotic” Chinese food. They belong more as a TGIF’s appetizer than a Chinese restaurant one.
I’ll pass on the crab ones, though.
I love crab rangoon.
I like cream cheese wonton.
I was expecting Cookie Monster had a multi-ethnic relative.
Funny how regional these things can be. I can’t say every Chinese take-out style restaurant here in Chicago has crab rangoon, but it’s fairly ubiquitous. (I just looked at the menus of 5 places nearby, and 4 of them had crab rangoon.) They’re decent, but it’s all a bit heavy for me, so I only have them if someone else orders them.
Maybe one of these?
Stop going to nice, semi-authentic Chinese restaurants. Chinese restaurants in strip malls in the 'burbs are where it’s at for the type of high cuisine we are talking about here. I don’t think you can legally open a suburban Chinese restaurant in the Boston area without offering them. Italian style dinner rolls seem to be required as well even for takeout Chinese food in the Boston area for some reason that nobody can explain.
For those of you that don’t like crab, don’t worry, I am not sure most Crab Rangoons have any crab in them at all. I don’t think you are going to get any real crab in a $4.99 lunch combo and you can’t taste it even if they did go through the trouble of taking tweezers and putting a tiny flake in them. They are just a warm cream cheese bombs cooked in a small shells in a vaguely Asian style.
Oddly enough, around here, outside Chinatown, suburban strip malls are often a good place to find non- or minimally-Americanized ethnic food, believe it or not. At one time it may have been a good way to gauge the cuisine, but some of my favorite Chinese, Thai, and Indian places are in strip malls.
I take it you’re not a fan of California rolls, then.
Crab Rangoon is a fine nibble.
As a seafood-unlover, I was never interested crab rangoons because I thought they included crab. “Nah, it’s just cream cheese!” So I tried one and liked it. If that’s what the OP means, I’m happy to be monstrous.
mmm wontons,
cream cheese with worcestershire and scallions
peanut butter
nutella
cream cheese, peanut butter and nutella
mashed avocado
seasoned ground meat
seasoned tofu
This kind of monster right here. Don’t want the ones that come free with your $20 or more order? Gimmeeee.
If it were stuffed with Krab it would be a non-tolkein “ork”. But at any rate, it would mean that meat’s back on the menu.
In California, some of the absolutely best Mexican food joints are in strip malls, and don’t EVER peek into the kitchen. Just eat the very tasty stuff they put on your table in front of you! 
Crab rangoon is quite good, done right. I do agree with the poster who said it shouldn’t require excluding pork won ton appetizers, though. My ex-wife made a version of those I preferred for the main meal!