Dumpling King - Moonta Street, Central Markets

Many years ago Dumpling King was the scene of a food epiphany for me. Their dumplings became the standard against which all other dumplings are judged. I've had many a dumpling since then - some better but many much worse. Regardless, Dumpling King will always have a place in my heart and when a friend suggested we eat there for lunch I immediately agreed.

Although they were obviously busy we were quickly ushered to tabled (this is almost always possible if you are happy to share) and immediately ordered sweet and sour soup, fried chicken and prawn dumplings and steamed greens with oyster sauce.



The sweet and sour is a very textural soup - thick and almost glutenous liquid; creamy, firm tofu; crunchy black fungus and bamboo shoots; and soft egg. It also has enough heat and acid to get the saliva going and excite the taste buds for the dumplings to come.



Crispy, chewy dough filled with minced chicken and prawns that pop these dumplings are grease bombs with insane flavour - especially after you hit your dumps with some chilli onion jam, black vinegar and soy sauce. I could literally feel the fat running down my chin while eating these. When your family motto is 'adipem est saporem' this isn't a problem.



I'd recommend your order some greens with your dumplings. There's nothing particularly special about them but you need something to take the edge off the grease-bombs.

Although I've heard a lot of people complain about the service I've never had a problem with it - it's chaotic, not bad. So long as you're happy to go with the flow and demand whatever you need (usually more of the FREE tea or a couple of little bowls if you're sharing a meal) you'll be fine. Plus, the food is good and the price is right.

Wong Kee Daily Yum Cha, China Town Food Court

When you can't decide what you want for lunch yum cha is the way go - although the sheer amount of choice could exacerbate the problem. Regardless, today was yum cha lunch with a mate who didn't know what he wanted. 

We ordered 5 dishes - savoury dumplings, fried squid, BBQ pork buns, sesame balls and a fifth secret dish (the highlight of the meal) to be revealed in the fullness of time (... later in this blog post).



The only weak joint in today's lunch was the fried squid tentacles (...which don't actually have any joints...) that had obliviously been sitting under the heat lamp for too long and had lost all it's crunch and gone lukewarm. The rest of the yum cha was delightful. In particular, the savoury dumplings and sesame balls were surprisingly good. A textural delight of (unidentifiable) mince wrapped in glutenous rice batter and deep fried - the savoury dumplings were crunchy, chewy and salty.



Made from the same batter as the dumplings, the sesame balls were instead filled sweet red bean paste and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

Light, fluffy, sweet rice dough filled with tender BBQ pork - these buns disappeared without any of the cloying stogyness often associated with poorly executed yum cha buns.

By far the stand out dish was the misleadingly named savoury doughnut.



Looks closer - see how it glistens with promise...



Essentially, the savoury doughnut is not round fried bread, wrapped in rice noodle and sprinkled with shallots. This seemingly simple combination creates a delicious and texturally complex dish. The bread is crunchy, chewy and slightly greasy. The rice is it textural opposite - smooth and slippery - while the sprinkle of shallots adds a slight fresh snap that helps cut through the grease. This dish alone is worth returning to Wong Kee Daily Yum Cha for.

5 dishes cost us $24 which is a little more expensive than you'd normally pay for lunch at the markets but the bamboo steamers are always full so you very rarely need to wait (except for the savoury doughnut which was made to order) and the food is pretty decent.

Obun Chef, Cnr Pirie and King William St

I’ve been interested by Obun Chef for a while now because I walk past it on the way to work. It’s one of the newer places along King William St and I’ve been hoping that, like the obun themselves, Obun Chef’s slightly crusty exterior contained a delicious gooey centre. Yesterday, I sampled Obun Chef.


The seating in Obun Chef is sparse, but you’d probably be ok to sit and eat lunch in there. A number of people were milling about waiting for food. In my view, large numbers of people waiting can mean one of two things. Either the place is popular because it’s delicious, or place is poorly run. Obun Chef is probably the latter. The wait was long and the meal was average. They were doing a special on teriyaki chicken and dumplings, so I ordered those. The signage promised a deliciously glossy whole piece of thigh…


… but they didn’t deliver. The chicken they served was chewy little strips. The flavour was good (they were really generous with the pepper and ginger) but the texture just didn’t cut it.

And the dumplings had bloody corn in them!


Don’t get me wrong. I like corn . But it doesn’t belong in a dumpling. Plus the dumpling skin was a bit rubbery and the meat filling a bit bland. It was an average dumpling.

Because the name of the place is OBUN Chef, I thought I’d pick one up. I’ve had obun before (there is a place in the Adelaide the Adelaide Central Market that does really good obun – except for their ham, cheese and corn (grrrrrrr, corn) obun), so I’m a bit of a fan (a big enough fan that if obun had a radio song I’d sing along (something like: I like obun and I cannot lie; all you other brothers can’t deny; when a chef walks in with yellow round thing and flaunts it in your face you get hungry!), but not so big that I’d join an Obun fan club and ask it to by my house… (apparently someone wrote a letter like this to Lucy Lawless, star of TV’s Xena: Warrior Princess!)). I tried the coconut obun.


This was one of the more disappointing obun that I’ve had. Unlike the obun from the market, this one was almost cold and tasted stale.


Disappointing obun (maybe I just got a bad one), the tough chicken and the obscurely corn filled dumplings aside, I’d probably try Obun Chef again… the salad wrap looks fabulous and they offer pancakes with strawberry and avocado (and not corn).