Xuxu Dumpling - Auckland

If you come here with the mindset of authentic Asian food, you 're going to complain and I suggest you head over to a greatly rated dumpling place by Asians for Asians. If you come here for a modern, western twist on Asian cuisine, then you 'll probably have no complaints. It is difficult to rate a cultural food place fairly if you walk in with the cultural expectations. One of our guests specifically said that her ancestors are probably rolling in their graves at a banoffee dumpling however, we approached the menu with an open mind. The prawn and ginger dumplings were so fresh and delicious, the duck was exceptional. Both the vegetarian dumpling options had great presentation but needed a little something for a flavour punch. The chocolate steamed buns were definitely a highlight of the night and I would even go as far to say that these beauties are so underrated and steal the banoffee dumpling 's thunder. The caramel in the banoffee needs more work and they probably need to be pan fried or even deep fried rather than steamed. A bit of texture contrast would actually set this dish on a higher level. The house made Mango, Cinnamon and Toasted coconut soda was BOMB AF as was the atmosphere and service of the staff. It 's definitely a whole experience from the entrance to the setting to the presentation.

We were so excited to reserve a table for 5 for the All You Can Eat dumplings on Sunday. However the experience went downhill from there. You would have thought if you are advertising for All you can eat dumplings, you would have prepared for the capacity of people booked in, to be able to serve people dumplings continuously. There were only 3-4 waiters for the whole floor and it was busy. The place is quite small and having 3-4 waiters waiting your table can become confusing for orders etc. It would have been more efficient if each waiter had a section to deal with (a few tables to deal with, instead of the whole floor). We had 5 people on our table and we were served 4 dumplings at a time. We ordered one of each to start but each of us only had 4 dumplings within 40 minutes! That’s one dumpling every 10 minutes! That was disappointing considering that we only had 1.5 hours to eat. We then asked to have 5 dumplings in each basket as we were getting quite frustrated with the wait and so each of us can have a dumpling each, in which they ended up giving us 2 basket of 4 dumplings because a different waiter Brought the food out. I’m not complaining about the extra dumplings we got, but the service is just so messy and they are definitely not set up for All you Can Eat service. In terms of food, the wontons are good but all the other dumplings pretty much tasted the same. The banoffee dumplings were good but the dumpling skin was a tad too thick for my liking and when it cools down, the skin becomes chewy. The one thing I appreciate was that they did not ask us to leave despite staying for more than 1.5 hours but they did “accidentally” charged us for 10 pax instead of 5 pax in the final bill.

We booked for 5pm to be told the kitchen was closed until 530pm. The cocktails were ok, nothing to write home about, and the dumplings tasted like the ones you can get from the supermarket freezer. We went for the dessert dumplings in particular which were delicious but took ages to come out after the savoury ones. Not surprised this place is closing down.

This place is not currently open, but we were told that the owners are planning to reopen.

Smaller dumplings. Packed full of taste but you definitely need to order a lot to fill yourself up (but they were out of most flavors we wanted so we used it as an appetizer and went elsewhere). For the dumplings we did have: the beef with mustard and duck with onions were tasty, but nothing unique. I couldn't taste the mustard; the flavor didnt pop or stand out. The service was also terribly slow at lunch, despite only two tables being filled. Not much to be desired. Easier to go down prince street and get cheap yummy dumplings.