Dumpling King

Dumpling King

572 Station St, Box Hill

(Ph) 9890 3719

We come to Box Hill to do shopping so regularly and we always just randomly go to a restaurant to get food. This time I thought I'd do some research and find a good place first - Dumpling King seems to have quite good ratings on Urbanspoon so decided to check it out.

We came at 2.30pm and the waiter said their lunch period ends at 3pm so we have to leave by then - whatever we were hungry so we sat down anyway. There were tablecloths on the table and lanterns hanging off the ceiling - was very Westernized, as was most of the customers there.

P said he felt like Char Kway Teow - we thought a dumpling restaurant must sell fried rice noodles right? How wrong we were - the closest they had was Singapore Fried Noodles, which aren't rice noodles boo =(

How strange of them to serve it up on a curry dish?! I guess there is curry flavour in it lol, I'm not a fan of Singapore Fried Noodles - it's just the noodle version of fried rice, where you just chuck in whatever you find in your fridge and mix some curry powder into it. Was alright - P said it tasted like the ones he used to get at uni which means it's not very good =P

I came here for the dumplings so of course I had to get dumplings - Pan Fried Beijing Style Dumplings - pork and Chinese leeks (10 pcs) $9.80

Who calls it Chinese leeks?! Chinese chives or spring onion maybe? lol. There was "Award Winning Dish" next to this dish on the menu. Unfortunately I really don't agree. They were quite ordinary - skin was quite thin but wasn't fried crispy enough.

Of course I had to order Steamed Shanghai Dumplings - pork and Chinese Soup Fillings (5 pcs) $6.20

This also had "Award Winning Dish" next to it - but my, this was even worse than the fried dumplings. There was barely any soup inside and the skin was kinda thick. Plus they didn't give us any ginger - for a restaurant who's famous for their dumplings how can you not give us ginger?!

And we felt like we had to rush our food 'cause we thought they were going to kick us out at 3pm, but they were still seating people at 2.45pm so surely we knew they couldn't close the restaurant at 3pm. Maybe it was just no ordering of food after 3pm?

Food~
3/10 - was very ordinary, had such high expectations of this place but seriously nothing compares to Shanghai Street =(

Service~
3/5 - not bad for an Asian restaurant, but like I said, they're aiming at Western customers here =P

Atmosphere~
3/5 - quite a large restaurant, think it used to be 2 separate restaurants and they bought the store next to them to expand 'cause it's like 2 separate rooms

Not sure if I'll come here again...

C.
xo

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01/07/2013

Got the new Entertainment Book! Boxhill restaurants are never featured in it so when I found Dumpling King in it, and apparently rated as one of Melbourne's Top 5 Yum Cha Restaurants by the Herald Sun - I thought I had to come.

I don't remember Boxhill really having any proper yum cha restaurants let alone one of Melbourne's best - oh how wrong they are! It was only when we arrived that I realised I had been here before and they definitely don't serve proper yum cha food here They have some yum cha dishes you can order on a piece of paper instead of the proper yum cha carts, and all the dishes were very Western yum cha dishes - boo!

We were inside already so thought we'd give it a second chance - we decided to get some dumplings again and maybe a few yum cha dishes.

P got a bowl of wontons in soup - which surprisingly was one of the better dishes of the meal. Nothing too special but not too bad, and quite generous in numbers and in prawns for the filling inside.

I had forgotten how bad the dumplings are here - and it was no different this time. Thick skin and no fried enough to a crunch yet was very oily.

The Xiao Long Bao was the same again - thick tough skin..

Though it did have some tasty broth inside.

P wanted some fried wontons which were on the yum cha list - I had never noticed this before but fried wontons and soup wontons are folded differently where for the fried ones they leave more of the skin hanging so it's more crunchy =) This was pretty good, but yes it was a very Western dish so maybe that's what they're good at?

Last we got a BBQ Pork Bun $5 for 2 so actually pretty expensive =/

Ohmygawd look how red the BBQ pork is?! So much food colouring ugh (Western dish yet again!), bun was quite soft though.

The Caucasian couple next to us didn't finish most of their dishes - guess they don't please the Caucasians either! I guess after the 25% off was the meal was alright but no third time lucky for this restaurant from me!