Hutong Dumpling Bar

14-16 Market Lane, Melbourne. 9650 8128
Score:34/40
This little beauty came highly recommended by one of my favourite food bloggers and I wasn’t disappointed. In fact, if you go to eat lunch here and hear orgasmic groans coming from a dark corner, that’s probably me.

The hutongs of Beijing have been all but decimated, but these narrow, winding alleyways are synonymous with old China. But strangely, the signature dish here, xiaolongbao, are actually a Shanghai specialty. Oh well. We’ll forgive and forget.

We were greeted by two menus – one lunch and one dinner. You can order of either menu, from what we could gather, but the lunch menu has some cracking specials.

I ordered a long list of dishes and was just about to order the last thing on my list (Sichuan pickled vegetables) when I was told sternly by my waiter that we had ordered quite enough, thank you. While some might be taken aback, I was so pleased – it’s not often that a waiter has the good grace to save you from yourself!

Xiaolong bao means small steaming basket bun. These little dumplings are filled with a small round of pork and steaming both broth. The trick is to get the dumpling out of the basket without puncture so that you can slurp the soup before gobbling the dumpling. We decided, unanimously, that we should test this place’s xiaolong bao mettle. We weren’t disappointed. There were eight dumplings in the basket ($8.80) and they were little gingery pockets of goodness. They were hot, with a thick steaming broth inside, and just sturdy enough that you could remove them without puncturous disaster.

Turnip cake ($5.80) was three pieces of pastry, coated with sesame seeds and filled with cooked turnip. They were good and fresh, but admittedly not as strong as some of our other dishes.

Next up was wonton in chilli ($8). Unfortunately these guys had been slightly overcooked, resulting in the skin being broken, but all was forgiven because they were, quite simply, divine. The dish was not oily and the chilli broth was sweet and just spicy enough to give your tongue a tickle.

For our vegetable dish I ordered sautéed snow pea shoots with ginger, or dou miao ($15).  This is, without a doubt, my favourite Chinese vegetable and they didn’t disappoint – the flavour was subtle so it didn’t overpower the leaves and they weren’t overcooked, so they still had a bit of crunch.

We had a beautiful chrysanthemum tea (Guk fa cha) and ended the meal with some fried pumpkin cake ($6.50) which was more like a tiny, light doughnut filled with sweet pumpkin. What a perfect way to end a fantastic meal.

Hutong Dumpling Bar is not expensive, but it’s a cut above some of the cheaper establishments popping up in the CBD. Highly recommended.

Service: 9/10
Food: 9/10
Value for money: 8/10
Ambience: 8/10