Din Tai Fung Dumpling Bar

Location: Level 5, Westfield, Pitt Street, Sydney 2000
Link: www.dintaifungaustralia.com.au
Cuisine: Chinese, Dumplings

After a couple of hours of shopping, H and I stopped for a light lunch at Din Tai Fung Dumpling Bar, a food court version of the famous Taiwanese dumpling chain.

shrimp and pork wonton noodles

A beautifully flavoursome but light dish. The wontons were juicy with soft wrappers and filled with nice chunks of shrimp and well-seasoned minced pork. The noodles were cooked al dente, and the broth was subtle and packed with flavour.

xiao long bao

Good old xiao long bao, the one dish to judge any good dumpling place by. These were perfect. The wrapper was thin and delicate, filled with juicy minced pork. A Shanghainese friend once told me that the trick to eating these is to take a small bite and to suck the soup out first. And soup there was a plenty. I would rate these on par with Hu Tong, which are the best I've had in Melbourne.

Din Tai Fung definitely delivers above and beyond the quality typically expected of food court dishes. If the quality here is anything to go by, I just cannot wait to try the dumplings at the head restaurant!

Overall Impression: 9.5/10

Shanghai Village

Location: 112 Little Bourke Street, Melbourne
Cuisine: Chinese, Dumplings

Who wants cheap dumplings? Me!!

After initially planning to try out the Post-Deng Cafe and finding out that a vast majority of the food was spicy (it was a warm day and my two companions are not fans of spice), we wandered by Shanghai Village and decided that it was going to be dumpling day.

Fried pork dumplings

Nice and crispy, and very juicy on the inside. These dumplings were an instant hit for me. There was quite a fair bit of meat inside and the oil from frying had been drained off quite well. Nothing is worse than oily drippy dumplings.

Steamed pork dumplings

These were equally as good (although my two companies loved this one more). The filling was the same, but the pastry was much more noticeable on these ones. Nice and even thickness, not too thick but strong enough to hold the meat and soup inside.

Szechuan mince sauce noodles

This was a disappointment.The mince and sauce lacked flavour and was quite bland, which along with some fresh cucumber and plain noodles, did not make a very appealing dish. We didn't even finish this one.

Xiao long bao!

These were pretty good, but not as good as HuTong. The meat and soup inside were nice and tasty, but the pastry was just too thick and not quite sealed. Soup would escape out of the top 'spiral' if you took your first bite elsewhere.

All in all, go here for the dumplings. From previous visits, they have some nice noodle soup dishes as well. Don't expect much service - they'll take your order and bring you the food, you get everything else yourself, which is fine by me given the prices are relatively cheap.

Overall Impression: 7.5/10

HuTong Dumpling Bar

Location: 14-16 Market Lane, Melbourne
Cuisine: Chinese, Dumplings

Having heard great reviews about this recently opened dumpling place, we decided to give it a shot to see if it lived up to its reputation for xiao long baos (see below) and test out their food in general. It's a fair way to walk up Chinatown from the general Swanston / Elizabeth Streets area, but well worth. If you want to try the full extent of the menu, show up earlier to beat the peak hour rush.

Xiao Long Bao

The true reason behind out visit to HuTong... these were AMAZING!!! And you can tell given that I only remembered to take a photo when there was one left...of the second batch!! Not only was the wrapper thin and tender, they actually had soup inside them! I've had xiao long bao before that were so dry inside they might as well have been dumplings for all I knew!! Although a bit on the pricey side (about $9 for 8), I'll definitely be back for more of these!!

Wonton soup

As simple as it may sound and look, the flavours were very nicely balanced. The wontons filled with soft juicy meat, a subtle-flavoured broth and the seaweed and spring onion garnish just perfect.

Radish pastry

A little on the disappointing side. The pastry was thick and a little too flaky, and there wasn't much of a filling. Proper radish pastry should be overflowing with radish, with a very thin crunchy outer casing. Think of it this way, would you like a sausage roll with 1cm of pastry surrounding filling that was only 1cm in diameter? I rest my case.

Steamed dumplings

Ideally, we would have ordered the fried dumplings, commonly also known as 'potstickers' (literal translation from '锅贴', but alas we arrived a little too late, right after the peak hour lunch rush, and they had 'no more' of them. Funny how all they needed to do was to fry the steamed ones though... In any case, the dumplings were quite good, plenty of meat inside and the outer wrapper wasn't too thin or tough.

Pricewise, HuTong is a little on the expensive side for these types of foods, but it is definitely worth trying it out once in a while. It's good quality dumplings, and very different to the crowded and somewhat greasy likes of Camy's (don't take this the wrong way, Camy's is still awesome as a quick and cheap dumpling feast!)

Overall Impression: 9/10