Located in Gungahlin, the Jade Dumpling Noodle House is a bit of a drive for me but I am trying to dine at more North-side eateries. J and I drove there the night that Canberra had all of that constant flickering lightning – a bit scary but we managed to park undercover. I was excited about trying this restaurant purely from the name – dumplings AND noodles! The restaurant is brightly lit with plenty of plastic tables and chairs.
We started off with the Jade Xiao Long Bao which came in a serve of 6. There was a good amount of flavoursome pork mince and soup, however the dumpling skin was far too thick and almost leathery. Not the right balance there unfortunately.
J likes his spice so I chose the spicy wontons for something a little different. These came in a serve of 10 and were filled with pork and vegetables, sprinkled with spring onion, sitting in a chilli sauce. These dumplings were fabulous with a smooth silky thin dumpling skin and a good portion of filling. These tasted fantastic with the chilli sauce which was of medium spiciness – I needed a glass of water after finishing these off. J really liked them too.
We had the 2-course Peking Duck main which came with 6 Peking Duck pancakes as well as stir fried duck noodles. There was plenty of fresh shallot stems, cucumber and prawn crackers to go in the pancakes. I found the pancakes a little dry but the duck skin was glossy, juicy, and came in large chunks. There was mainly skin and not much duck meat attached to the skin, which if you think about it takes real skill by the chef.
The duck noodles were piled high on the plate with the noodles being handmade. There was SO much duck meat in these noodles (I guess that’s why we didn’t get much in the pancakes). This is the first time where there has been a dish with more meat than noodles! J and I had to fight over whatever noodles we could find. A tasty and filling noodle dish 🙂 We took most of this home in a take away box.
Another noodle dish we ordered was the seafood chow mein ($16.80) which really only had some king prawns in it as the ‘seafood’ aspect. It came with plenty of vegetables such as baby bok choy, baby corn spears, mushrooms, carrot, broccoli and cauliflower. We let the light sauce soak into the crispy noodles sitting underneath (I prefer the noodles a little bit wet). This was J’s favourite with lots of crunchy elements and flavour in this good old Aussie-Chinese dish. He polished this one off.
Service was polite and efficient. Cold tap water and glasses were provided as soon as we sat down. We were required to fill in an easy order form and staff went through our choices to confirm our order. All dishes were brought out when ready, luckily our table for two was pretty large, with empty bowls and plates taken away promptly. Unfortunately I didn’t note down most of the prices for the dishes but I remember it being pretty standard for Canberra.
Foodgasm 7.5/10
Value for money 8/10
Service 9/10
FPJ score 24.5/30
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