Tag: dumplings

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Chinese

JML Dumplings – Wolli Creek NSW Restaurant Review

This place was really hard to find, owing to the fact that their Google Maps location points to a different and completely unrelated dumpling restaurant, whose staff were at least gracious enough to point us in vaguely the right direction.

We started with some soy/tea eggs ($2 each), for which unfortunately the marinade had not penetrated into the yolk, leaving a tasty white with a boring hardboiled centre.

The Shepherd’s Purse & Pork Wonton Soup ($12.80) had a nice filling (though not particuarly better than the frozen dumplings I’ve been getting from the grocery store lately) as well as a nice wamrth and lightly salty umami flavour to the soup, but suffered from an unusual and unpleasant thickness in the wonton skin, making it more of a meal and a chore to eat this meal than a wonton soup should be.

Though I failed to capture a photo of the Dumplings of Pork & Chive ($12.80) apart from a single cross sectional shot, I much preferred these to the wontons. They had a strong chive flavour to them, which is really what you want and often can’t be replicated by the frozen stuff. The skin was again a bit thicker than ideal, but this was not as problematic as it was for the wontons.

I did not think I would enjoy the Steamed Pork and Sticky Rice Dumplings ($9.80), but they came out first after the eggs, and I guess I was hungry. I’m glad the sticky rice wasn’t too densely packed, because it was a real I heard you like carbs in your carbs so I put carbs in your carbs so you can carb while you carb moment.

The Honeyed Pork Ribs ($12.80) were good, meaty, tender and juicy, but very sweet and sticky.

Overall thoughts
The price to performance ratio at JML Dumplings in Wolli Creek was good. I am a highly predictable rater, and any half decent pork and chive dumpling at a restaurant that offers them boiled will score high marks from me. Their menu is diverse, however, so even if you don’t like anything featured here there is probably something for you.

JML Dumplings
Shop 2/1 Brodie Sparks Drive, Wolli Creek NSW 2205
0481 863 226

Categories
Chinese

Swanky Noodle – Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

When we first ate at Swanky Noodle back in 2019, we were very impressed by the dingy decor, the no fuss service, and the excellent Northern Chinese cuisine. Flash forward to 2023, and we found ourselves back at Swanky Noodle for dinner in between acute stroke calls, a particularly interesting part of the public health service where a non-radiologist is tasked with reading a CT Angiogram, CT Perfusion, and non-contrast CT Brain and making a decision as to whether or not someone should get thrombolytic therapy within the course of minutes.

Good as ever was this Hot Stewed Beef with Noodle Soup ($13.80). It was a large and well priced bowl, with chewy, twangy housemade hand-pulled noodles in a richly umami soup. There was plenty of very tender beef, and it’s easy to see why this is one of their most popular dishes.

Less good were these pan-fried dumplings ($13.80), which most importantly were pan-fried, rather than boiled, like we asked for. The boiled dumplings were great back in 2019, but pan-fried dumplings are just lower effort in general. They were very meaty.

The spring pancake ($13.80) I also didn’t love, mainly because they were dryer than expected and filled with vermicelli, complicated by the fact that of the two separate guys in the kitchen one guy had cooked the filling but the other guy had forgotten the wrapper until a bit later. The equivalent of this dish that we had back in the day was full of chives (I have photo evidence from the 8th of September 2019) and much better.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

The beef soup noodles were as good as ever, but the other things we had were complicated by mishaps and also just not being what we wanted. It is true that we visited half an hour before closing, but we weren’t the last table to enter and be served, and would’ve rathered a maximum of one accident per meal. I’m upset because I had really quite fond memories of this place. If only we had stopped at the noodle, the fondness would’ve remained

Swanky Noodle
131 Church St, Parramatta NSW 2150
(02) 9633 1173

Categories
Chinese

A Bowl Of Noodles 一碗面 – Haymarket NSW Restaurant Review

Unfortunately my dinner at A Bowl of Noodles did not live up to the expectations set by following their social media over the past year or so.

The Yellow Croaker Noodles ($23.80), one of the restaurant’s signature dishes, did not amaze me. It had unfortunately and probably unavoidably quite a fishy smell to it, though to its credit it did not actually taste fishy. The flavour of the soup was quite light, umami, and pleasant, though pleasant not to the degree that we wanted to finish it.

The Pan Fried Pork Buns (sheng jian bao 生煎包 – $11.80) were fine on the outside with good dough and crispiness, but oddly gooey on the inside. I won’t go so far as to say uncooked, because I don’t know for a fact and I didn’t get sick after my meal, but these buns were generally unpleasant for me.

The chive and pork dumplings (10 for $13.90) were actually very good. They stood alone as a dish that met expectations and were the highlight of the meal.

I kind of felt that the xiao long bao ($9.80) would be a dish that I could trust that a Shanghainese specialty restaurant would do well, but I was of course mistaken. These XLBs were quite dry and devoid of soup, without even any holes in the skin that could explain it. I’ve had much better steamed from a box from the frozen section of my local Asian supermarket.

COMMENTS. I didn’t find what I was looking for.

A Bowl Of Noodles 一碗面
735 George St, Haymarket NSW 2000
0415 483 140

Categories
Chinese

Feng You Dim Sim 逢友点心 – Hurstville NSW Restaurant Review

Feng You Dim Sim 逢友点心 is pretty good. It is a small dim sum restaurant in Hurstville with both indoors and outdoors seating, where you order at the table by drawing ticks or circles on a paper menu. The obvious benefit of this system is that you don’t have to worry about having to catch the eye of roaming aunties with trolleys and hoping that you’re in a good table position to get the prime items before they run out. There is also a full colour menu with prices and item names in English, taking away another part of the mystery of ordering, making it all very accessible to non-Chinese reading or speaking folks.

This is the Meat Roll ($8.30), a name which doesn’t really express that it is wrapped in a sheet of bean curd. The bean curd sheet was a bit harder than expected, which gave it better structural integrity at the cost of more pleasant mouthfeel. This was prawnless, which seems to be a deviation from the standard, but my partner thought that this made it friendlier to a broader audience.

The steam pork ribs with black bean sauce ($8.30) were not bad, though it was odd tos ee it come with taro (is it usually like that?) as well as green chilli, which was not what was pictured on the photo menu. I can only assume it’s a seasonal thing?

The chicken feet with black bean sauce ($8.30) were solid, though again with green chilli. Please note that while this photo only depicts three feet, it came with four. My dining partner could not wait to sink her teeth in.

The chicken feet came with peanuts? How odd.

I’m not usually a lover of radish cakes, but the combination fried cakes ($8.30) with a selection of radish, taro (too starchy), and water chestnut (too sweet with a weird gelatinous texture) made me appreciate the radish one, which was honestly not too bad and quite umami.

The mushroom & chinese broccoli rice noodle wrap ($10.80) I could’ve lived without, especially as the prawn ones are the same price.

The chives and prawn dumpling ($8.30) were wow. The best I’ve had in a long time. Extremely fragrant, fresh and tasty chives and a good filling of prawn also. It would be worth going back just for this.

The chew chow style dumpling ($8.30) were fine. They kind of came 15 minutes after the previous dish, by which point we were pretty full. I suspect they were forgotten, and will note that they did forget some of the dishes for some of the other customers.

OVERALL

A solid yum cha experience, super accessible to non-Chinese readers and speakers, with killer jiu cai jiao. Worth coming back just for those alone.

Feng You Dim Sim 逢友点心
7/11 The Avenue, Hurstville NSW 2220
(02) 9580 2251

Categories
Chinese

Yang’s Dumpling – Burwood NSW Restaurant Review

Whilst we’ve parked frequently outside Yang’s Dumpling on our way to other restaurants we’d not, until now, ventured inside. We ordered a surprising amount of food for two humans trying to save for a deposit for residential property in Sydney, and much to our detriment, it wasn’t all good.

We had a combination of pan-fried pork buns (3) and pan-fried pork & prawn buns (3) for $13.80, but sadly only received two pork and prawn buns and four usual pork buns, the sesame colour-scheme system clearly failing them and us. Whilst the pork and prawn ones were nice and fresh and tasty, the lack of a third bun meant that I didn’t get a good interior shot of them.

The pan-fried pork buns were sadly not as good as the pork and prawn buns because they simply weren’t hot and fresh. These buns are not quite sheng jiang bao as they were not filled with soup, though they did have (or were meant to have) a crispy base.

The pan-fried vegetable and pork buns (4 for $9.80) were pretty good though. It’s really heat dependent.

The xiao long bao (6 for $9.80) had a strange taste and we did not finish them.

The pan-fried vegetable and pork dumplings ($11.80) were also not warm!

Love a good tea/soy egg though.

GENERAL THOUGHTS
It was a real shame that a lot of what we ordered just wasn’t fresh and warm. The things that were fresh were pretty good, but the enjoyment of pan fried dumplings is really dependent on their warmth and crispiness. I guess they must not be cooked to order, which I think is below the bar set by most establishments that sell food.

Yang’s Dumpling Burwood
Shop 9, 11-15 Deane St, Burwood NSW 2134
(02) 8057 7109