Soup, Cookie and baked beans.

We had worked with our friend Stevie in the Caribbean, now he was back and rehoused in Melbourne so a catch up was in order. When you with a local taking the no-questions-asked-tour is the only way - and so it was that we found ourselves walking through Chinatown in the evening rain. The destination turned out to be Hu Tong dumpling house, where according to the whole world of Melbourne the soup dumplings are "the business". Hu Tong is wickedly popular but the wait for a table was a far better option than facing the rain again. Soon enough we were led to the funky bricked tea house decorated third floor and seated.



The xiao long bao obviously were first up (and maybe third and fifth), the little soup bombs requiring a little special eating technique but worth every patient nibble, the gingery soup fragrant and rich within the tender dumpling skins.



Wontons in chilli sauce deliver with a plate of slippery morsels in a puddle of chilli oil flecked with szechwan pepper.



The steamed pork was something we couldn't go past on the menu, so soft it fell apart as it was lifted from the plate, and smothered with anonymous red sauce. Awesome.



We were a little disappointed by the fried squid. Chewy and thickly battered. We drowned our sorrows in more soup buns.



After a few too many buns we made our way out into the night and further into the Melbourne night. A little while later Stevie convinced us that the fairly lacklustre bouncer clad entrance to Cookie is somewhere we want to go. Upstairs though we were given the "I told you so" with a cavernous bar offering an interesting range of drinks such as Dirty Granny Mature Apple cider. And the bar snacks....well.... who would of thought we'd have so quickly forgotten the soup buns of earlier that night to try as much of the great Thai snacks on offer.


Little tapioca pearl skin dumpling witha peppery sweet filling.


Sour fermented pork ribs with peanuts, ginger and chilli.


Northern Thai sausage, a little dry but flavour wise bang on.


Roasted nuts with chilli and Kaffir lime. Cookie was a nice surprise, a nice bar with great snackage.

The night progressed in this fashion until we ended up in a bar unknown drinking savagely blue cocktails and other creations out of baked bean cans and pretty much all the rest of the photos and the night ended up like this.



Good times.

Hu Tong Dumpling House
14-16 Market Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
T: +81 (0)3 9650 8128

Cookie
First Floor, 252 Swanston Street
Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia
T: +81 (0)3 9663 7660