Shandong Mama

I keep hearing about this place, I keep reading about this place and it keeps popping up in the newspaper.... So I caved in and tried it out.

Out and about on a Friday night, I was just after a quick and cheap dinner.... so dumplings felt like a good choice.

My partner and I got their famous boiled fish dumpling, which has a fish, chive, coriander filling. Unlike other dumplings, this is delicate in flavour. Don't go in expecting meaty and juicy because you will be disappointed. The way the fish filling is made, it's not mushy and had a element of 'bounce' when you bite in to it. However without any dipping sauce, this dumping can borderline and taste quite bland. It is suppose to be served with a dipping sauce made of soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and sesame oil. When you order it, they don't actually bring it out, you have to ask for it. I had mine with vinegar and soy sauce (occasionally a bit of chilli oil as well). Once dipped in sauce, it is quite nice, but still on the delicate side.

We also got a pan fried dumpling with a prawn, black fungus and chive filling. Of the two dumplings, I preferred this one. I think the crispy skin and the stronger flavours is something I prefer in a dumpling. The dumplings were wrapped in a cannoli fashion, with thin pan fried skins. The filling has prawn flavours through out. This is not your usual cheap dumpling style.


Overall I give it a 13.5/20. The fish dumpling is different but personally I still prefer stronger flavoured dumplings. I found it really disappointing that you weren't given the dipping sauce with the dumpling and that you had to either asked for it or make it yourself. We weren't told about it and I think that really influenced me in what I liked the fish dumpling. Service is like any other cheap Chinese restaurant (being no service). For dumplings, it's not really that cheap compared to other 'fast' dumpling places. The prawn dumplings were $12.80 for 10 and the fish dumplings were $14.80 for 10. Most other dumpling houses charge less than $10 for more than 10 dumplings. It's nice... but slightly over hyped.