Steamed for Dumplings at Lunch

Steamed
http://www.steamedcatering.com/

When I first saw Steamed mentioned on the blogosphere, it brought me back down memory lane. The little dumpling shop is located on Turbot Street, where I did uni for 5 years. I haven't been in around there for a while! Even when I get the chance to have lunch in the Brisbane CBD these days, I rarely venture that far from Queen Street Mall. However, the promise of handmade dumplings was more than enough to lure me north.

We had a tiny bit of difficulty finding Steamed because when I see 'Turbot Street', I automatically think of the Dental School and that's where I started heading towards. It was only when I was across the street from my old home of high stress, unpaid clinical hours that I realized there would be no food shops around there. I whipped out Google Maps and backtracked a bit to find Steamed amongst a row of other small takeaway stores. The shop is TINY. There's a counter where you order and there's one (yes, ONE) big table that takes up the whole shop front. A bunch of business men were seated around munching on dumplings.

Marc lined up to order and I quickly snatched up 2 seats around the long table. Many people came in to order takeaway and I can definitely understand why. It's very cosy around that table! Even eating in the park would be nicer.

Six and a bun

On offer are 3 varieties of handmade dumplings: pork filling, chicken filling and vegetarian filling. There are also pork buns at Steamed, and a variety of 'packages' that include a selection of different things. Marc and I ended up going with a 'six and a bun' package each, which is self-explanatory (six dumplings and a pork bun, for those who are a bit slow).

Harbin pork dumpling

For our dumplings, we forgoed the option of vegetarian and tried the pork and chicken fillings. I thought that both had a really nice flavor, with a good kick of ginger in the pork and a nice mushroomyness in the chicken. I probably liked the pork better of the two but they were both tasy, especially with the chili oil dip that was available from the counter. My critisism is that in a few of my dumplings, the wrapper was over-cooked and gluggy. Also, whilst the dumplings weren't dry, they also didn't contain any soup. That's a big deal in my family's judgement of dumplings.

Pork cloud

The pork buns were called 'pork clouds', which I find irresistably cute. The bun portion was light, fluffy and sweet. The filling was good too but there just wasn't enough of it! This bun had too great of a dough to filling ratio.

I think Steamed is a good, healthy option for mid-week lunch. If you're craving Chinese flavors, it's a nice variation from the usual greasy takeaway lunch boxes that can be found around the city. The dumplings weren't juicy enough for my perfect dumpling standards but they had a nice, authentic flavor.