spicy sunday simmer...

Very impressive dinner tonight - slowly getting better at perfecting a home-made chinese feast. Still having trouble finding ingredients and sauces that aren't too salty. But assured that all ingredients did not contain MSG was overall pretty happy with the results!

We made salt and pepper tofu, spicy cold noodles and stirfried chinese green veg and shitake and chilli sauce.

The spicy cold noodles were a hit all round the table - spicy noodle sauce from big asian supermarket on victoria street richmond. Just added bean shoots, roasted peanuts and chopped spring onion - so yummy!

When is a bar a Bar and a dumpling a Dumpling?

HuTong Dumpling Bar
14-16 Market Lane, Melbourne 3000
ph: (03) 9650 8128


A discovered that HuTong Dumpling Bar did a spicy fish so we knew that for our next date night, we would be heading to HuTong (last week was Tiamo2).

After a sneaky drink at SistaBella we expectantly and nervously headed for HuTong. The major issue when entering Market Lane is battling through the temptation to give in and go into Flowerdrum. A suggested we attempt to get a table, but as I have no dosh we continued across the road to HuTong for date night.
Glad that we did, I can tell you! As a fan of dumplings but not a fan of Dumpling House dumplings its hard to find good dumplings for a reasonable price in Melbourne - suggestions welcome!

Although the place was busy we still managed to get a table by the big front windows and immediately started exploring the menu. When ever A and I head to a restaurant that has a sezchuan spicy fish on the menu we order our 'compare banquet' - the spicy fish, spicy eggplant hotpot and a house special. This time, we of course went for the dumplings, ordering both the shrimp dumplings and the spinach dumplings.

The spinach dumplings came out first and boy were they yummy; filled with noodles, tofu, mushrooms engolfed in a spinach wonton skin- they were so yummy and not at all soggy or starchy (like at some places) - i could have gone on eating them all night! Unfortunately after just one bite of the shrimp dumplings we knew we'd ordered a dish with pork in it so couldn't eat them - looked good though!

Next we started on the spicy eggplant hotpot- so sweet and juicy, perhaps a little oily but a flavour that complimented the spicy fish pot well. Although we thoroughly enjoy the eggplant hotpot wherever we go, it doesn't always compliment the spicy fish, A was thoroughly impressed that this wasn't the case at HuTong.

Somewhat desensitised to the overpowering thrill of sezchuan peppers, I am always a little concerned when first sampling a new hotpot - will this be the one that has me throwing back glasses of water and blowing my nose in my napkin? Unfortunately, I don't think that I have that in me anymore, but none the less (probably to many customers relief) my satisfaction with HuTongs spicy fish was not dependent on these hopes. The quality of the dish was suprising considering the reasonable pricetag. I was thoroughly impressed with the fish, the fresh peppers and thick delicous broth.


I highly recommend HuTong for its traditional Chinese cuisine, large selection of dishes, modern decor and yummy dumpling bar (the glass wall peering into the dumpling kitchen is surprisingly inviting)! I will be returning soon and will be ordering 2 servings of the spinach dumplings all to my self.

P.S I did sneak a quick noseblow in after the meal after all.