Royal Dumpling & Noodle

Royal Dumpling and Noodle is my local dumpling joint however in the past it has been over looked in favour of the Dominion Rd restaurants. It was only after reading a recent review by Cheap Eats that I remembered how much I used to love it. I had a re-​read of the review I wrote back in 2013, «After driving past Royal City Dumpling many times I finally tried last week and I am very glad I did, it will now be my go to restaurant in Auckland for dumplings as they were truly delicious. Their pork and fennel dumplings were particularly amazing. I look forward to going back to try the noodles which also looked great. The owners are friendly and prices very reasonable.»
Their menu has changed since then. They now have a yum char menu as well as a full dumpling menu and full sized Chinese menu. I have since been back twice in one week which is always a good sign. The first time was to try their yum char menu for dinner. We were excited by all the options and low prices but knew we couldn’t order everything this time. We went with the Steamed Coriander and Shrimp Dumplings ($ 5.30), Deep Fried Squid ($ 6.50), Deep Fried Spring Rolls ($ 6.50) and the Stir-​fried Chinese Veges ($ 11.80). This was more than enough for two people. The squid was extremely large for $ 6.50 and while it was delicious we really needed another 1 or 2 people to help us finish it. The spring rolls were probably my favourite. They were FULL of shrimp and were crispy and delicious. But everything was good.
I then went back to get some takeaway dumplings for dinner. Pork and Fennel pan-​fried. As Royal Dumpling is across the road from Pak n Save I thought I would pop over while the dumplings were being made. I may have left them for too long as when I got them home they were a bit chewy, luke warm and not that great. This was entirely my fault, I just want to warn people so they are not tempted to do the same. I was a sad dumpling eater that night.