The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
ravs
/ravz/, Chinese ravs, n.
[primarily MIT/Boston usage] Jiao-zi (steamed or boiled) or Guo-tie
(pan-fried). A Chinese appetizer, known variously in the plural as
dumplings, pot stickers (the literal translation of guo-tie), and (around
Boston) ?Peking Ravioli?. The term rav is short for ?ravioli?, and among
hackers always means the Chinese kind rather than the Italian kind. Both
consist of a filling in a pasta shell, but the Chinese kind includes no
cheese, uses a thinner pasta, has a pork-vegetable filling (good ones
include Chinese chives), and is cooked differently, either by steaming or
frying. A rav or dumpling can be cooked any way, but a potsticker is always
the pan-fried kind (so called because it sticks to the frying pot and has
to be scraped off). ?Let's get hot-and-sour soup and three orders of ravs.?
See also oriental food.