Dumpling Den @ Grattan St

Dumpling Den

Here comes the term break. So I have one week break and basically my plans for this holiday is to take this opportunity to study and catch up with my assignments. Oh, and of course I will spend some time food hunting as well haha. So tonight I tried 2 places with my friend. One of them is Dumpling Den, the chinese dumpling restaurant along Grattan St in Carlton, and after that we went for dessert at N2 Extreme Gelato in Brunswick St. Stay tuned I will make a review about N2 Extreme Gelato shortly after this post. So for now let's focus on some dumpling action!

So, the name tells it all - Dumpling Den, so we expect the signature dish here is dumplings, well to be precise, Chinese style dumplings. We decided not to have a heavy meal so as we dig in the menu, we decided to order 2 dishes to share among the 2 of us. Staff were friendly and quickly took our order of 1 Special Fried Rice and 1 serve of Steamed Pork Dumplings (12pcs). I normally don't put high expectations on chinese dumplings as I personally do no like their strong ginger taste and juicy filly, but however, never try never know, so give we gave it a try. The waiting time was quite long, took around 20 minutes if not mistaken until the Special Fried Rice was served.

Special Fried Rice

Firstly I would like to ask you guys about your opinion about this dish just by looking at it. What comes into your mind straight away? Well for both of us, our first thought was "WALAO!!!Got apa special about it??!!!" Yes the special fried rice doesn't look special at all and as I took a spoonful and tasted it, it proved us correct. There is seriously nothing special about it and it tasted just like what an average home cooked fried rice would taste like, and sometimes home cook fried rice taste even better. The ingredients used were barely simple like frozen vege, a TINY amount of shrimps, chinese sausage and eggs, and maybe some light soy sauce and MSG. I personally would think that if you are going to call your dish "Special Fried Rice", mate you better make an effort to at least make your dish taste special or at least not something we can easily cook at home. So definitely not worth it.

Steamed Pork Dumplings

The dumplings on the other hand took longer until it was served. By looking at it the skin reminded me of the "Har Gao" which is the local pork dumplings I had back home in Kuching. I took a bite of the pork dumpling and to my surprise, it was too juicy which is unlike those dumplings that will have juice oozing out of them as you bite them, and you end up making a mess because you've got the juice spraying all over your face and clothes. These ones are totally different. There's no juice in them and yet they are not dry at all. I love them and the ginger taste wasn't too strong for me. Definitely loving it! So that's a thumbs up for the steamed pork dumplings. Simple dinner that costed us $20. Stay tuned for review on N2 Extreme Gelato!

Photography by Canon EOS 7D with Sigma 30mm f/1.4