Dumpling King

240 Castle Peak Road, Yuen Long
Visited 1st May 2009
Before a Saturday morning visit to the market and Joey and figure it was time for some sort of food. I’d noticed the Dumpling King but had never tried it, but when we saw the prices we were in there quick smart. The branch we went on Castle Peak Road opposite Yuen Long Plaza is one six outlets scattered between Yuen Long and Tsuen Wan; the other Yuen Long branch is on Fau Tsoi Street near Shaffi’s. Inside the big restaurant is just your typical Chinese dinner; clean but basic.

While claiming to be the ‘King’ as far as dumplings go these guys also sell a range of noodles and rice plates as well as plenty of different snacks. We of course went for a serve of their signature pan-fried dumplings, along with a steamed bun and a serve of hollow soup noodles with chicken wings. The dumplings were a slightly strange elongated shape but were really juicy inside with a crisp, but surprisingly not oily bottom. The pork bun was good, with a decent meaty filling. Joey really wanted ‘hollow noodles’, insisting that as you can suck up soup through the middle they have a really intense flavour; I disagreed. Along with bad ‘luncheon meat’ and soggy macaroni these noodles would have to be about the only Cantonese food I really dislike. As I predicted the hollow noodles, which are really just a bad quality copy of spaghetti were soggy, flavourless mess. The rest of the dish was OK though: a nice enough soup base, minced beef, peanuts and some oily, but tasty wings.
While claiming to be the King of Dumplings is perhaps a bit of an overstatement there’s no denying that the Dumpling King offers some tasty snacks. Probably the most startling thing about this place is the how good value it is; $10 for 5 dumplings, $4 for a bun, $23 for the noodles with a plate of wings and only an additional extra $4 and $5 for soy milk and a Coke; cheap as. Apart from the sloppy hollow noodles I enjoyed my feed at the Dumpling King and will certainly be stopping in again.