Mum's Dumplings, Balwyn by Obelix

Having a reliable dumpling source is a necessity for when those hankerings hit and one is far from the Madding dumpling crowd of Box Hill, CBD, etc. In my mission to establish such source, I tried out Mum's Dumplings in Balwyn. 

Mum's Dumplings offer Shanghainese fare. The dumplings are made on premises and whilst they also do claypot dishes and stock standard Chinese dishes, it would be remiss to go to a dumpling house and not have dumplings.


So dumplings we had. Kiddo and I ordered between us a serve of the vegetarian pan fried dumplings and the steamed version.

As vegetarian dumplings go, these were considered quite lovely. It had a considerable medley of veg of chives, cabbage, mushrooms and carrot. I say "quite" lovely because, tasty it certainly was but I had an awful MSG-sy after burn on my tongue. So whilst it was lovely at the time of eating, I couldn't get past the thirst afterwards.

We also had a serve of the vegetarian spring rolls.  These were substantial and filled with cabbage and carrot (not a bad thing).

And in case there was not enough carbs, a serve of the Shanghai fried noodles. These were thick cut noodles with plenty of soy sauce and the odd bit of bok choy in between. This was a bit bland and would have been nice with a serve of chilli oil.  

Speaking of condiments, one could not have dumplings without vinegar to cut through the grease, aid digestion.  In this scenario, it calls for the ghetto strength, Ching Kiang vinegar.  No wussy red vinegar with ginger shards afloat here.  Ching Kiang is dark and robust.  They have a massive industrial sized bottle of it at the self serve cutlery counter.  I made do with my bottle at home as we did take away.  

Verdict

We liked it.

Overall

Mum's Dumplings is a passable dumpling joint.  The dumpling wrappers are thin and expertly wrapped, the fillings tasty.  The only downer is the MSG factor but if you don't mind consuiming that stuff, then that's not a problem.  Service is quick (well at least when I went but I've heard mixed reviews about service time).

Find it at

Mum's Dumplings
363 Whitehorse Road
Balwyn VIC 3103
Phone: 9836 2951