Little Red Dumpling Bulimba — Restaurant in Brisbane City

Don’t waste your money, this was the first and last time I will go to the Bulimba LRD. I’ve been eating at LRD’s for years and love the food! However, 3/4 dishes were not up to scratch and I left with questions about the quality and freshness of the food here. We ordered the phoenix fried chicken on rice, the fried chicken baos, pan fried pork dumpling and dumplings in sweet soy chilli sauce.

The baos came out with barely any chicken, see photos. When I asked about this, I was first told that the product looks bigger in photos than it does in person. I pointed out that there was a huge difference between the amount of chicken I received compared to the image in the menu, to which I was told that was, “just how it comes from our supplier” - even though the chicken pieces were clearly cut after they were battered and cooked. (Their response also raises a few questions about how fresh the food is.) Staff offered to take the baos back and remove them from our bill which we agreed to. Price was $10.80 and I couldn’t justify spending that on two baos that had less chicken than a chicken nugget.

The phoenix chicken and rice didn’t look anything like the menu image either, refer to photos. It came out covered in sweet chilli sauce, which we didn’t want, however the chicken pieces were tasty and we could find some rice and veg to eat that wasn’t drowning in sweet chilli sauce. This chicken used in this dish looked exactly the same as the chicken pieces used in the baos… interesting. This was the first time I have ordered these dishes from LRD, so I hoped the dumplings themselves would be great.

The dumplings in sweet soy chilli sauce were great! Yay!

The pan fried pork dumplings were slightly undercooked as some of the dumpling dough edges were hard/chewy (first time I’ve had this at LRD) AND there were big chunks of carrot through them - while I know carrot can go in dumplings I get this dish every time I eat at LRD and have never had carrot in it. I am not opposed to it, however, it’s not the “pork dumplings with cabbage” that they advertise on their website and they were BIG chunks of carrot, not even grated - refer to photo. The carrots themselves were soft like they were either frozen or pre-cooked, which again raises a lot of questions about the quality and freshness of their food.

Staff seemed lovely, besides trying to convince me that their food wasn’t significantly different from the menu images, and the atmosphere was great but I won’t waste my money on food...

Well where do I start?.. Came here for dinner on Easter Monday . A decent clientele had built up after 6pm. 2 in the kitchen working and one guy in front counter and taking orders , taking the food out and sorting the ulber orders and dispatching them. As it got busier the dude was rushed off his feet . He came and took our order .. confirmed and we waited. Entrees came out .. wrong order but ask it it was ok to accept it . We did . Although it was slightly more we still got charged the normal price. There’s only 2 of us eating by the way. Waited 30 mins for my braised beef and noodle soup. Still not here. As we watched him running around trying to place orders and serve customers . As we waited a long queue of ulber deliveries had formed for their order . I waited patiently for mine to arrive ??.. 40 mins gone . Nothing . Until I asked and he checked my order?. It was never written down which probably explained why it never turned up. Anyhow we cancelled our food and left after been there for nearly an hour and had a bill of $62. Surcharge was $8. I still haven’t eaten yet and we decided to go somewhere else. Very...

I got fried wonton starters and quite overcooked with the skins so hard had to really bite through them.

The wonton soup for mains was… odd. Iceberg lettuce instead of bok choy, no noodles and no other additions made it very plain. The soup was just watery as a result.

Not what I expected as thought it would be more authentic even for Brisbane.

Edit: Apologies about the missed payment - this was an oversight and not a complaint. Small businesses work hard and I believe should not have to endure things like walkouts. I would say that the QR code ordering from the table doesn't take payment which is generally not how most QR ordering solutions work. As consumers we're getting trained in the 'no contact' method for ordering and my brain was saying that I'd paid for the food. I would be surprised if this doesn't happen more often. I will rectify this today.

In terms of feedback that was what this review was about and the style of cooking isn't generally a fault to be fixed by the staff in that moment. I'm happy you are looking into the product itself and not the cooking as that was the main reason...