Yuye and I went to Hu Tong for lunch the other day after dropping off our passports at the Chinese Consulate for visa applications. It was almost 2:30pm when we called to make the booking and we were told no bookings after 2pm and 3pm is when the kitchen closed. After hearing that, I drove like a maniac into the CBD (hoping there were no police around…) and just made it into the restaurant at 2:45pm. While we were gawking at the lunch menu, a number of customers walked in and were politely refused entry, this is when I laughed silently to myself thinking "lucky I made it" :D I am so evil.
The lunch menu consisted mainly of yumcha style dumplings and noodles. As we were both soooo hungry, we ended up ordering 3 sets of dumplings, xiao long bao and a noodle dish. I thought it would be too much food but it was just right. There is also a fishbowl like kitchen (just like China Red, also part of the Hu Tong empire as well as Din Tai Fung in Sydney) where patrons can watch the great chefs at work while they wait for their food.
We tried their money bag (石榴包 shi liu bao) at $6.80 for 3, and I must say, the first impression I had was 'gosh they're small'. Maybe because it was 3pm and these were steamed a long time ago but they looked shrunk, small and sad. Nevertheless, we ate them and they tasted good. The ingredients inside were diced snow peas, carrot, ham, mushroom and minced prawns. There were too many flavours inside that my tastebuds didn't quite know which one to focus on.
