The Little Chilli House, Hurstville

So I had a craving for xiao long baos but didn’t want to travel all the way to Ashfield. I recalled seeing a dumpling place in Hurstville and asked my friend if they wanted to come test it out with me.

The Little Chilli House has a cute name. It is located on Forest Road, next to Japan Home Centre and is a one minute walk up from the station but is at the slightly less busier end of Forest Road.

The store window

There is a long window that wraps around the outside and continues as you walk inside. It contained lots of different foods and buns.

Food to takeaway?

More buns in the window

But we were only here for one (or a few) things after all so we ignored all of the foodstuffs in the window and sat down with a menu.

After we ordered, I had a look around. Just like the dumpling places in Ashfield, there was someone at the back of the store carefully making them!

It was about 3pm in the afternoon and most of the tables were empty.

There wasn’t much people-watching to do, so we just sat and drank some tea.

After about a ten minute wait, our food started to arrive! Yay!!

The xiao long baos were…..disappointing!!!!! They had no soup in them!!!! My friend swears that in their first one, there was soup but for the rest of them – nothing!!!!!

I was so upset, I had been really looking forward to having that slightly oily soup burst open in my mouth and fill it with soupy goodness. Sigh.

I don’t know if you can tell from the photos but these weren’t very good either. The dumpling pastry was too thick and we had trouble actually chewing and swallowing.

Out of the three dishes, this was the one that I liked the best (or at all?). There was hot soup insde and the bottoms were fried to golden crisp. The texture of the bottom reminded me of a donut skin.

All three dishes were served a vinegar dipping sauce.

Would I revisit? Probably not. I was just excited to see if I could avoid trekking out to Ashfield to get my fix of xiao long baos.

The service was quite good though, and maybe the rest of their menu has some hidden gems.