When one Chinese restaurant closes, another one opens. This is true in the case of Hong Feng which replaces the former Dragon Tea House. My experience at the former restaurant was so bad, I was hesitant to come here just in case it was another re-branding.

Out at the front of the building are two menus. A simplified take away menu and a nice glossy restaurant menu. The restaurant menu boasts expensive seafood dishes with professional photographs. There is also a decent selection of meat, vegetable, hot pot, bean curd, soups, cold dishes, pastries, dumplings, noodles and rice dishes. It’s an impressive menu which showcases the best classic Chinese dishes available.

The floor plan and dining area is identical to what it was as the former Chinese restaurant. The front dining area has plenty of natural light, while the nook around the corner relies heavily on artificial light. The furnishings all look very similar to the previous establishment.

For lunch, I ordered the Fried Prawn Dumplings. The dish arrived after a 20 minute wait and was rather poor in presentation. It looked as though the dumplings were just thrown onto the plate. It was only when I took the camera out that both the Owner and the Manager came to my table and tried styling the dish to help improve its appearance. That took another 10 minutes as they flipped dumplings over and rearranged accordingly.

The dumplings are homemade which is a breath of fresh air when you compare to the mass produced frozen variety that are commonly available. Unfortunately, the dumplings were only fried on one side and they were drenched in oil.  Not only was there a puddle of oil on my plate, each bite of the dumpling caused a squirt in all different directions.

As for the filling, it was combination of prawn and chives. In all of the dumplings there was more chives than prawn, and in some cases, there was no prawn at all. If you’re going to describe a dish as “Prawn” dumplings, I would expect a fair amount of prawn in it. The dumpling skin was nice and firm, and the filling was well flavoured.

If you’re not ordering one of their seafood dishes, the prices are quite reasonable with most mains under the $20 mark. My 15 Fried Prawn Dumplings set me back $14.80 which is just under a $1 a piece. Having made and cooked these dumplings at home myself, I know they should be a lot better.

A slight improvement to the restaurant that was formerly here, but there’s a big emphasis on the word “slight”.

WHERE: 172 Pulteney St, Adelaide