Studfield Dumpling House, Wantirna

Studfield Dumpling House is a place where you want to like it, but you would struggle to do so. This newly opened restaurant looks neat and clean, the menu contains a variety of dumpling, rice and noodle dishes at very reasonable prices. This is what we ordered when we visited:

Deep fried chicken ribs on rice. I think it's difficult to go wrong with deep fried foods. This tasted similar to what you would find in a generic Cantonese restaurant. Lots of rice, and even some blanched bok choy on the side for a balanced diet.

Fried chicken and prawn dumplings. Unlike some other stores where their dumpling fillings consists of a mystery mash with no discernible prawn meat, I can see actual prawn meat chunks in the filling, a very good sign. They weren't oily like the rest, but taste wise, was a little underseasoned. 

Stir fried rice noodles with beef slices and egg gravy. Liked the egg gravy, liked the rice noodles but the beef was a little tough but edible. I like how this is a generous serve.

The restaurant looked clean, generous serves, food was OK.. so what was the let down? The service. I don't expect to be waited hand and foot, this is a Chinese restaurant after all. But I do expect intuitive service. For example, you don't bring a dish with gravy and only a pair of chopsticks to eat it. What will the customer scoop the gravy and pieces of slippery rich noodles with?

Although there were only two other tables besides us in the restaurant, we had to ask for water and cups after being seated for some time. I don't think it occurred to the waitstaff to bring us any. And no, this is not a restaurant where customer can self-service.

Another dish was delivered to our table without any eating utensils until we asked for it. All the while, the staff was chatting to their friends/relatives on one table, or milling about.

All in all, it was a very frustrating experience because we wanted to enjoy the food hot when it arrived on the table but couldn't do so. It's really too bad, because the strip would benefit from a dumplings place.