Hidden behind a Nowra pawn shop, Fatty Dumpling serves the kind of Chinese street food you’d expect to find in cyberpunk Chongqing, rather than in regional NSW.
Do you remember the last time you were on a road trip, your stomach clawing with hunger, and you succumbed to a lukewarm pie at the nearest servo? It felt a bit bleak, didn’t it, parking beneath the fluorescent lights to rip open the plastic wrapping? Fighting to keep the gelatinous meat from oozing onto your lap.
As you drive south through the Shoalhaven region and enter Nowra, the Princes Highway becomes a smorgasbord of sad pies and fast food outlets. It’s one chain after another, and nothing to indicate that, at a fairy-lit concrete lot behind a pawn shop, there’s a food truck serving some of the best dumplings you’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.
This is Fatty Dumpling, where owner-cook Weiqing “Elvina” Yang serves the kind of street food you’re far more likely to find in Chongqing – the cyberpunk megacity in China’s mountainous south-west – than in regional NSW.
It’s rich, warming and gloriously textural stuff: silky dumplings glossed in chilli oil; slow-braised spiced pork served tongguan roujiamo-style in a crisp golden bun made of layered, laminated dough; and beef soup noodles, tightly coiled in a pool of garlic-heavy red Sichuan heat.
For Yang, this is the taste of home. It was the comfort food she turned to during the COVID pandemic, when international borders closed and the “couple of days” she’d planned to stay in Shoalhaven turned into a couple of years.
“I’ve always loved food – Chinese food, my hometown’s food – but there was nothing like [that] around Shoalhaven,” Yang says.
But first, she had to learn how to cook.
Yang, who formerly worked in sales, crowdsourced her first zhong dumpling recipe over phone calls with her grandparents (and friends’ grandparents) back home in Zunyi, in Guizhou province. The dish originated more than a century ago in Chengdu, the capital of neighbouring Sichuan, and it was the first dish on the menu when Fatty Dumpling launched as a pop-up market stall in 2023.
“I had to experiment because [the ingredients] here were so different, but eventually, I was able to combine everything I learned and develop my own recipe,” Yang says. “I invited all of my friends to try it … because I wanted to create flavours that were not just authentic, but also approachable.”
The dumplings are delicate crescent moons filled with minced pork, boiled and served with a deep red sauce – part chilli oil and part sweet soy, pulsing with garlic and spice. There’s an undercurrent of heat, more pleasant hum than scream, that compels you to keep eating, and eating, until somehow your plate is empty and, damn, maybe you should have ordered eight dumplings instead of five.
I’m not their only fan. By 2024, Fatty Dumpling became so popular that Yang went all in, leasing and transforming an empty lot in Nowra’s industrial precinct into a sun-beaten oasis, with a shiny silver trailer, potted cacti and an eclectic collection of weather-worn furniture, shaded by striped umbrellas and illuminated with string lights. It’s a casual, seat-yourself affair with counter service and a small selection of canned soft drinks.
Yang mostly works alone, sound-tracked by funk music on a Bluetooth speaker. She takes orders, cooks food, and shouts directions at customers: “You have to mix it!” she tells a woman, starting on a bowl of “Mum’s” beef noodle soup. “That’s the only way you can taste all the flavours!”
Mum’s beef noodle soup doesn’t come from Yang’s mother, it should be said. In 2024, she returned to China for a research trip to Chongqing, navigating the city’s vertical sprawl to find the best noodle shop.
“I met a gentleman [Pang Shifu] who had been in this little shop for over 40 years, and I stayed there for a few days while he taught me his signature dishes – his mum’s beef noodle soup and his [wan za mian] noodles, with all the secret ingredients,” Yang says.
The wan za mian are sold at Fatty Dumpling as “Barbara noodles” and they’re deliciously easy to enjoy: thin wheat noodles ladled with velvety yellow peas, sesame seeds, and brothy minced pork, balanced by bright, just-steamed greens and spring onions. The bowl is light, earthy and creamy – all the elements of a bestseller, as Yang predicted.
What she didn’t predict was the effect cooking would have on her. It’s been one year since Fatty Dumpling opened its permanent home, and in that time, she’s developed a community of customers, regulars and close friends.
“Food is connection. I didn’t grow up in Australia, I grew up in China, and I’m proud of where I come from,” Yang says. “I wanted to give people the opportunity to know what authentic Chinese food is because that’s my food.
“When I see them eat my food and smile, it makes me so happy. It makes me feel accepted by locals, and accepted by this place. That’s really important to me.”
Three other places to eat in Nowra and surrounds
Hyper Hyper Coffee
A rustic shed made of corrugated iron, where both locals and visitors queue for house-roasted coffee made on vintage Italian espresso machines. Try the Portuguese tarts, flaky and fresh, or head next door for brekkie at Punch the Ploughman.
85 North Street, Nowra, hyperhypercoffee.com.au
Black Cede Gunyah
Order the strawberry gum scones with native jam and whipped cream for morning tea at this bush food cafe led by First Nations women. It’s a beautiful space to spend some time, and you can pick up Indigenous spices for home cooking.
39A/43 Kinghorne Street, Nowra, blakcede.com.au
Ramox Cafe
Located inside the visually stunning grounds of Bundanon Art Museum, Ramox serves a creative take on seasonal Shoalhaven produce. The fried Tilba halloumi with pickled rhubarb, green olive and fennel is quite special with a glass of natural sparkling from Orange winery Tamburlaine.
170 Riversdale Road, Illaroo, bundanon.com.au
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Bianca Hrovat – Bianca is Good Food’s Sydney eating out and restaurant editor.
