Dumpling King
572 Station Street
Box Hill
Myself, Swannie and Sarah (who writes a beauty blog, if you’re interested!) last got together when sampling some Vietnamese down the road at Tien Dat, and the time for our semi-regular catch-up had rolled around again.
Dumpling King is a bit of an institution in Box Hill. I’m not sure if it’s related to the same joint that pops up in the Westfield Doncaster food court, or the Centro Box Hill food court, but it occupies a prominent spot on Station Street and reliably turns out what must be millions of dumplings annually.
We ordered the four seasons vegetarian dumplings, because I like how pretty they are when they arrive with the four different vegies in each little crimped pocket; beijing pork dumplings, and xiao long bao dumplings – these are the soupy ones which you need to bite into carefully lest hot soup gush out and ruin your top. We also ordered a main dish, which was beef and vegetables on sizzle plate – but for the life of me I can’t remember the correct name. Apologies!
Four seasons dumpling, Dumpling King
Four seasons have mushy corn, mushy peas, mushy carrot and mushy mushies (heh) in each quadrant of the dumpling. Underneath, there’s spinach. It doesn’t reaaally have much taste, I tend to drown mine in chilli and vinegar, but they look so pretty I can forgive almost anything.
Soup dumplings, lacking in soup.
The xiao long bao (soup dumplings) were a bit average. I think Hu Tong in the city is still my benchmark for good xiao long bao dumplings in Melbourne. In fact, I think Hu Tong is probably the benchmark for many people! The idea is that you bite into the thin skin and slurp up the porky soup from within the dumpling, then you get to eat the rest of the dumpling. Not all of our dumplings had soup – some had obviously leaked into the steamer.
We ordered a main to make sure we felt full after all the dumplings, and the beef arrived on sizzle plate and piled high in a mound with vegies. For a restaurant that shouts its specialty in its name, Dumpling King did do a great beef sizzle plate. We enjoyed it just on its own, without rice.
Suckers for sizzle plates…
For a good night in Box Hill that you might be able to get into without making a booking (we got a table of three pretty easily on a Sunday night, although the restaurant was quite busy) Dumpling King does good dumplings. I’ve had the seafood dumplings (lantern dumplings) on a previous occasion and really enjoyed them. The mains are good too, but for me coming here it’s all about the dumplings. If I want really nice mains, I’ll head up to Happy Cook in Nunawading.
Some other reviewers have visited Dumpling King and enjoyed its bounty: Suburban Culinary Adventures looks like she had some very nice calamari as well as dumplings on her visit; but Hold the Peas thought it was hit and miss, as did Eat and Be Merry…
Fresh Bread 