Dumpling King — Restaurant in Melbourne

I was absolutely shocked and horrified at the terrible customer service that my partner and I received this Saturday night. We felt judged and discriminated against right from the start because we are a young couple. Like the restaurant didn’t take our service seriously because we weren’t a large family or older couple. So we were out looking for a good dumpling restaurant for our date night. So when came across dumpling king we happy to make the commute considering the promising reviews online. As we entered and waited to be seated I noticed the place was more or less empty and we couldn’t help but be slightly relieved as we didn’t have a reservation for the evening because it was still relatively early. We were then “greeted” (for lack of a better word) by a middle aged short woman with a short pixie cut. I didn’t catch a name but What happened next was just not right. Right off the bat she assumed we were there for takeaway so when explained we wanted to dine in she asked if we had a reservation. When we said we didn’t have a reservation her attitude towards us changed and she seemed annoyed at us as she said we have to pay premium rates different to what was on the menu I was holding. I didn’t understand completely what she meant as she talked very quickly and then tried to seat us quickly as possible not giving me the chance to ask her further questions. I was confused if we would be paying extra because we were dinning in as opposed to take away or because we didn’t have a reservation. I still don’t know the answer to this as we were blatantly cut off a few times. Then finally when I was able to ask how much extra this premium rate was we got viciously snapped at. “ I don’t know. I can’t remember everything, can I!?”. Me and my partner we in complete shock at the words coming out of this ladies mouth and the words spoken with such malice in them.Under no circumstance did we derserve to be spoken to like that. We had shown nothing but respect and polite curiosity to this lady and even had no issue with paying a little extra. But after that we just did not feel comfortable staying there so we politely told her that and left. We went next door to DC dumpling were we were greeted wonderfully with amazing hospitality and delicious food. My advice to everyone. Go next door to DC dumplings if you don’t feel like being judged and snapped at for a petty reason. Not to mention they have top notch food at DC! My message to the owner if he is reading this. Like I mentioned before I don’t know this lady’s name but she was a short middle aged woman with short hair working on 25th August Saturday evening. This woman needs to be trained in customer service or replaced. I work in hospitality myself and under no circumstance is it okay to treat a customer with such rudeness within the first 5 mintutes of them arriving. The moment we arrived at this place we felt like we were an inconvenience and were not welcome there or deserved proper service all because we didn’t have a reservation and we were a young couple. We would have absolutely been willing to pay a little extra or understanding even if there were no tables available due to not having a reservation. All that was needed in this situation was a polite explaination and a chance to ask questions to better understand the restaurants system. But because this situation was handled so terribly I can’t imagine I will ever feel comfortable to return to this restaurant. I will also be advising my large group of family and friends that are always looking for good Asian restaurants to take their business elsewhere due to the beyond horrible...

I attended a birthday dinner on Friday night and the food was picked up from Dumpling King. Unfortunately it was even worse as a takeaway, the sweet and sour chicken was almost entirely batter and the Beijing shredded eggplant was incredibly oily. The chicken in the chicken cashew nut was very poor quality tasting also. Will not be back

Original review We went to Dumpling King last night for dinner and were very disappointed. Having visited Box Hill once before and been quite pleasantly surprised I had expected much better then this. We started by ordering a variety of dumplings, prawn, beef and chicken as well as two serves of spring rolls. The prawn dumplings were my choice and when they arrived, luckily I cut into them as they were steaming hot.

That’s when I realised they didn’t look like prawn and queried it with staff. I’m not sure how but they had misunderstood our order as pork. As a non pork eater I can’t tell you how much this frustrates me and how regularly it happens that I receive something with pork in it that’s either not in the description or in this case was pure error/misunderstanding.

The actual prawn dumplings themselves took an eon to arrive and when they did weren’t much chop. I even found a prawn tail inside. Surprising for a place professing to be the king of dumplings.

Main wise we ordered the honey chicken. This we couldn’t actually see on the menu but it duly arrived after it was ordered. I guess it’s a staple of westernised Chinese food.

The best dish was definitely the satay chicken albeit the pineapple within definitely tasted canned and the dish itself was quite small relative to the honey chicken. I enjoyed the vegetarian noodles too but overall we weren’t...

I have been coming to dumpling king for years and have often raved about how good the food is. However, it seems that in the last few months the quality of the food has gone downhill. We came for dinner a few months ago and had to ask if the owners had changed, as we noticed some of the dishes were not the same as they usually are. Apparently it was the same owners as it always had been. So we decided to try again to see whether it was just an off night. Unfortunately, the quality of the food was still not the same. The pan fried dumplings were not crispy whatsoever and the Shanghai fried noodles had a strange curry powder like flavour with an odd aftertaste. I have since read in another review that the previous manager unfortunately passed away about a year ago which may explain the change in quality. The xiaolongbao was quite nice and the honey chicken saved the dinner from being very disappointing. Despite the service always being excellent, it's not worth another try and I'm on the hunt for a new go to place...