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Sarah Cooks: Charlie Dumpling
Bars

Charlie Dumpling

2/19/2014 11:53:00 PM

Charlie Dumpling

Charlie Dumpling
184 High Street
Prahran VIC 3181
Ph: (03) 9510-4213
Charlie Dumpling on Urbanspoon

Last night I attended the launch event of Charlie Dumpling, a slick-looking new bar-slash-dumpling restaurant from Chef Dylan Roberts. A night of cocktails, and dumplings made by one of Ezard's ex-chefs? I was totally in.

The bar

The bar

The function room upstairs

Espresso Martini Station

Mr C Sheen - Gin, watermelon, lime, agave - $18

I don't normally like gin or watermelon, but these Mr C Sheen cocktails were super refreshing and totally hit the spot. As you can imagine, my favourite part was the shredded coconut!

Espresso Martinis

Espresso martinis

Espresso martinis are a favourite of mine (judge me if you will, I do not care) - not just for the taste, which I love, but also because the combo of coffee, vodka and Kahlua is the perfect pick-me-up after work and before going out. We really enjoyed these, and I especially liked the dash of cinnamon on the top.

Let's have a look at the food! We were served a good range of items from the menu, primarily focusing on the dumplings. We tried a lot of different items, so I won't go into great detail about each one, but what I will say is that the dumplings were all of high quality, and all tasted different. You know how sometimes you can go out and eat a whole bunch of different dumplings, but they all taste kinda the same? Not here - they all had different skins, different fillings, and each one was unique.

The menu is divided into "Small Bites", "Salads", "Dumplings" and "Desserts", so there don't seem to be a lot of big filling options, but rather a range of little snacky items to have with drinks. The dumplings are priced between $9.50 and $14, with four dumplings per serve. Whilst I really enjoyed the food and would recommend a visit - I would caution that if you want to have a full meal, and not just snacks with drinks, it could get very expensive very quickly.

Salmon Tartare, nori crackers, bonito custard, native lime

Tuna Sashimi, wakame, wasabi, green tea salt

The tuna sashimi was super fresh and I liked the combination of flavours that came with it - different enough from regular sashimi with soy sauce to be interesting, but not so different that it was jarring.

Beef balls

Water spinach, squid, shrimp and curry leaf kewpie

I think these squid, shrimp and curry leaf kewpie dumplings were my favourite savoury ones of the night - the little fried curry leaves on top really made them stand out.

Steamed prawn and bamboo shoot har gow

There were big, chunky pieces of prawn in the har gao - yum.

Snapper, chilli, lime, black bean

Peking duck dumpling and spiced plum sauce

Angus beef, lemongrass, smashed peanut, coconut

Charlie’s Vegie dumpling

I'm sure now you can see how varied all the dumplings were - there were influences and flavours from Cantonese cuisine, Northern China, South East Asia, India and more.

Lemon tart mochi, salted almond

These little mochi were filled with a lemon ice-cream (which literally tasted like a lemon tart!) and topped with an addictive salted almond caramel.

Soft-centred chocolate donut

We saw the kitchen making these donuts - a frozen ball of chocolate filling was dipped into batter, and then deep fried so that the outside was crispy and the chocolate was molten and liquid. These were amazing! I could have easily polished off the whole plate. (But I didn't. Promise!)

Thanks to the Charlie Dumpling team for a really fun night and all the delicious food!

Sarah and Jimbo attended the launch of Charlie Dumpling as guests.

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5 comments

  1. It is ridiculous - RIDICULOUS - how much I want all of this. Snacky foods are my one true love (#sosingle)

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  2. Argh can't believe I missed eating half of these dumplings, including the chocolate ones! Will have to return :)

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  3. The dumplings all look really good and delicious.

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  4. Yuuum! Love love love dumplings - to me, they're definitely an anytime food.

    I see what you mean about the price though - at those prices, you're looking at more of a bar snack than a full dinner.

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  5. DELISH! Dumplings are good at anytime of the day. And this place sure have good-looking dumplings. And also, that espresso martini looks inviting :)

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