Tonli Dumpling House

Crispy on the outside, ground chicken, cabbage, and maybe a little ginger. Very tasty but also under seasoned. Salt would have made them outstanding.

Visited the truck at Alameda’s off the grid for the 1^st time.
Ordered the chicken curry and pork dumplings and enjoyed both.
The dumplings were filling and the sweet hot sauce was great with them.
The curry was also really delicious and a huge portion and for me the mild was a perfect balance of spice.
All together with water out total was under 20 bucks!

I stopped by Tonli Dumpling House’s Truck when they were at SoMa Streatfood Park and wanted to snack on their dumplings before going grocery shopping at Whole Foods. Snack is a loose term though when referring to their dumplings. I ordered their Crispy Fried Chicken Dumplings and they were huuuuuuuuge! Check them out – (
). They serve you six dumplings and they were stuffed pretty good with chicken inside – (
). They were fried pretty well too and had a light crisp to them like fried gyoza. Good stuff and was surely a surprise. I’m definitely going to come back order more dumplings with some fries next time and also give their rice plates a try too. Check them out if you have a chance!

Dumplings were good, but skip the rice bowls. They give you a lot of food, but unfortunately it was quantity over quality. Focus on making really great food in every bite.

We took the dumplings and two bowls of teriaky chicken with rice.
The dumplings were good, nothing special to me but my husband really like them.
The teriaky chicken tho was absolutely tasteless. The rice and brocoli that come with it don’t do much. About 10 $ for this rice bowl, we were very disapointed.

Keeping it short & sweet — normally I’m not drawn to dumplings, but I was tempted by the long line at the food trucks. The pork dumplings are delicious and crispy! But, I am most impressed with the portion size when compared to other food trucks. They sell a braised pork rice bowl with broccoli for $ 11 and it is super filling, I actually have LEFTOVERS. That is pretty much a rarity when it comes to food truck dishes.

Time: 5:34pm/101°F sunny
Purpose: Attended OTG downtown WC at N. Main/​Mt. Diablo. After consuming a bowl from Adorubowl, I was on the hunt for another truck. Dumplings sounded good at the moment.
Set-​up: Barney the dinosaur color food truck, prop up side panel counter with condiment/​utensil tray, two ice chest and tri-​color waste bins. Menu hand written hung on hooks with bamboo backing.
Staff: Only two guys inside and both were busy to acknowledge line forming at order window. There were like over ten people waiting for their orders, so busy that cashier had to help out. With searing heat by the minute and neckline burning, I almost walk away. Finally one of them turns around says hi. Yea, hi man I’m burning up here for the last 3 – 4 minutes. He then grabs booklet and start jolting down orders. Pay a little more attention, I know its hot, but you’re the one running it, make it happen.
Cleanliness: Grade A, seems acceptable no signs of trouble as vendor permit and health inspection paper posted above menu.
Eats/​Drinks: Pork dumplings 6/​$ 7 comes w/​red chili flakes sweet and sour plum sauce. Although, it was piping hot filled with finely minced pork and cabbage. It seems these were some how frozen version, not hand made. Now, I’m not even sure myself so, I’ll base it on look. Skin were thick and hard from frying. I understand anything fried is either crunchy or hard, but these were lethal weapon hard. Place one on sligshot and it’ll knock your *ss out. When I bit into one, it burn my tongue with a gush of steam came billowing out. OUCH!!! Thanks for telling customers to be careful! Even a coffee lid has a warning (caution contents hot) stamp on it. It was just ok nothing that screams, omg or let me try one. I didn’t felt thirsty or have migraine so, it didn’t have msg or artificial flavors. They’re not bad for the size, but the way it was prepared suggest otherwise.
Main Features: Fried dumplings (pork or chicken) only.
Products/​Services: Crispy fried pork or chicken dumplings, dumpling combo w/​side salad and rice, grilled chicken curry rice bowl, teriyaki chicken rice bowl, six hour braised pork belly over rice, assorted bottle/​can soda, juice, water. Takes plastic.
Punch Lines: Made to order, longer than average wait time, short on help, not attentive, not as great, struggling service during peak time, pleasing flavors, modest cost, drool-​worthy, budget-​watchers, devotees, nothing out of the ordinary, well prepared, limited menu choices.
Tradeoffs: Dumplings sold are all fried, no steam or baked. People that can’t eat fried food will not be able to try them.
Final Thoughts: These dumplings are really nothing special other than good filling. They bear the same resemblance of those in a Chinese restaurant under appetizers, also fried. Mostly fried and thick skin with asking price of $ 1.17 each is not a deal. You can get a bag of frozen with 36ct for $ 7. When I saw limited menu with word fried, I just knew it was set up to generate profit faster. Finger food with little or no benefits that hurts waist line. These days, its all about profit with no concern of health anymore. The only way I’ll return is, if and they would some how make steam or baked version. Look at it this way, steam version would save money on frying oil, helps environment and offer those who wants something other than FRIED. Again, its not bad, but couple of things that’s associated with my experience brings, it down to 3 stars.

At the first off the grid in Walnut Creek and after reading reviews of this food truck decided it would be the first thing I tried. I ordered the pork dumplings (6 jumbo sized). They were good. I knew they were deep fried going in, but still found them too fried for my liking. I’m more of a light fry or steam dumpling kind of gal. Even still, they were tasty. I wasn’t a huge fan of the sweet and sour sause. I’d love to see other options like vinegar or shoyu.
Pro tip: puncture holes in the dumplings when you get them and don’t eat for at least 5 minutes. The holes release some of the crazy heat inside and makes it less squirty when bitten.

Tried this out yesterday when they were outside of the Pleasant Hill Bart station along with some other food trucks. I ordered the chicken curry over rice with potatoes and carrots. The kid who took my order was very nice and smiled a lot. I had to wait a little under 8 minutes for my food. It all came out to about 10 bucks, but it was great! The food was very hot and fresh and had just enough spice to keep it very consistent, but not too spicy. I will definitely give them another try if they are here again next time. Several of their items (especially the dumplings) look quite tasty!

I’ve gone to this food truck a few times since it started coming to my office around lunchtime. The staff is very nice and they are always pretty quick, even when there is a line which is great. I’ve gotten the chicken teriyaki bowl and the fried pork dumplings.
The chicken teriyaki bowl is really good — there is a really good amount of chicken and broccoli and the ratio of sauce-​to-​stuff is really good. The portion is really big though so if you order it make sure you are really hungry!
The fried pork dumplings are also really good and they’re served with a really nice spicy but not too spicy sauce. The balance of flavors in the dumplings is really well done and they are well filled and a good size (two really big bites or three normal ones). My one issue with the dumplings is that I don’t think they drained them quite long enough before they put them out so there was a little puddle of oil at the bottom of the bowl so the dumplings at the bottom got kind of soggy by the time I got to them which was a bummer because other than that they were really tasty.

My review is for the food truck which we spotted at the SOMA StrEat Food Park one Saturday afternoon. We were holding a fundraiser for one of the non-​profits that I volunteer for, and naturally I volunteered to help out. Part of what I was instructed to do was to situate myself at the main entrance of the food park and offer up information on who we were, what we do and what we were trying to achieve at the fundraiser.
Since the food park had just opened and the lunch rush had not started yet the cool owner of the Tonli Dumpling House food truck walked over and struck up a nice conversation to gather more information about our organization. Since we share a love for eating good food our conversation soon turned into one about food and eventually a discussion about the food that he takes pride in preparing on his food truck.
Not being one who goes out looking for food trucks I had never heard of Tonli Dumpling House so when the owner asked that we stop by and give his food a try and offered a generous discount to our volunteers as part of his contribution to our organization I spread the word to our volunteers, and after my shift was over I took him up on his offer. A couple of ladies on our volunteer team had already purchased food at the food truck, and told me whatever they had ordered they loved.
By the time I visited the menu selections for the truck (
) were down to 6 choices and 2 of them caught my eye so I ordered both. As promised I purchased the food at a discount as several of our volunteers had before me.
My food was ready in a short time, and I couldn’t wait to dig in. The food park was pretty packed at the time but luckily our organization roped off a table for the volunteers to use.
The Crispy Fried Crab Dumplings (
) had a nice pocket of fresh crab inside the deep fried wonton wrapper, and it was properly seasoned which meant I didn’t have to put to use the very generic sweet and sour dipping sauce.
The Braised Pork Belly Ramen (
) really hit the spot with a deceptive amount of noodles which I thought was a lot less than there was and a generous portion of rich, tender and super flavorful pork belly. Yup, melt-​in-​your-​mouth pork belly goodness! The broth was just a tad on the salty side, but after eating all of the firm noodles, the pork belly and the near-​perfect egg half I was okay with not finishing the broth.
All in all, 4 stars for the food but I threw in the extra 5^th star as a thank you to the food truck owner for his generosity towards our organization and our volunteers.

Excellent chicken/​pork dimsums/​momos with spicy sauce. Fried though, they should do baked ones too.

3.5 STARS
If you grew up in a Chinesey household, deep-​fried foods were a no-​no. It was all about steaming, stewing, and woking… at least, according to my babysitter who use to whack me with a feather duster if I didn’t finish e-​v-​e-​r-​y grain of rice in my bowl. Now I’m rice obsessed adult and look like Mrs. AzN Bibendum, otherwise known as the Michelin Man’s wife.
We were at SoMa StrEat Food Park when I saw Tonli, a dumpling truck (more like an Asian Fusion truck). We love dumplings so I decided to grab us some except when I saw the menu, they were deep fried. *gasps* I got flashbacks of my babysitter waving the feather duster back and forth in front of my face.
The other two items on the menu were pork belly ramen and a rice bowl option, none of which looked appealing. I walk back to our table and ask Mr. NSS, «Ummm, are you sure you want dumplings – they’re deep fried and comes with fries?!» His eyes glistened when I said «fries» so I went back to the truck and ordered the Six Piece Deep-​Fried Pork Dumplings w/​furikake fries ($ 9.50). Cc’s accepted.
A quick 4 – 5 minutes later, I was graced with this pile of fried food that just seemed wrong on so many levels:
.
Upon taking the first bite into the piping hot dumpling, I squirted… well, the dumpling did – 3 feet across to the other table. That’s how juicy they were! The skin was abnormally thick which wouldn’t work if it was steamed (probably be very gummy) but they somehow managed to be pretty darn good deep-​fried (better than my most recent visit to the Happy Dumpling stand in the Stonestown Farmer’s Market). There was a good amount of savory pork and cabbage filling (no msg detected). It was served with bottled sweet and sour sauce which I didn’t care for. I think if they made their own soy vinegar ginger dipping sauce, it would elevate the dumplings. The furikake fries were hot and crispy but I was hoping for an actual furikake mix of seaweed, sesame seeds, and bonito. Instead, it was just seaweed strips and some Cajun type seasoning that which was way too salty.
Surprisingly decent deep-​fried dumplings that would probably make your Chinesey ancestors roll around in their grave but when can you ever say, you squirted…3 feet?

Wow, what a great food truck! I tried this food truck maybe 2 or 3x now at the PH area and I absolutely love the pork and chicken fried dumplings and the teriyaki chicken bowl. I have yet to try the ramen but I know I will do so next visit. The food is delicious, fairly fast, and friendly. A good combo.

It was fine. If you’re craving ramen slightly better than top ramen and dumplings slightly better than Costcos (better because deep fried!) then this is the spot for you. I preferred the dumplings over the ramen — would give them 3 stars by themselves but they are pricey (7 dollars for 6) so lose a star for that. Hopefully you’ll have other options!

Visited the truck at Bishop Ranch we had the fried pork dumplings with fries and pork belly bowl. Crazy good, the dumplings are big fat and juicy and made me wish I was not sharing. The pork belly is melt in your mouth soft and not overly seasoned so the taste of the meat is the star and the juices from the pork made the rice super sexy.

Just checked out the dumpling truck at the San Ramon Farmer’s Market and the dumplings were a hit! It was pouring down rain and Tonli’s warm dumplings hit the spot! Totally worth standing in the rain for! Keep up the great work and exceptional customer service oh! and warm smile! :)

TASTE OF THE WORLD MARKET
The Tonli Dumpling truck started showing up in the Town Square across from Pleasant Hill BART on Thursdays, on a regular basis with the other trucks. I figured I would get around to trying it sooner or later, and decided to finally give it a shot last week. SO glad I did!
The Chicken Lemongrass dumplings got my immediate attention, but of course, those were the ones that had to be ‘sold out.’ They did also have a Pork Dumpling special they were running for a mere $ 7.00, so I went with that instead.
They REALLY know their stuff! The dumplings were nice and crisp on the outside, the way good fried dumplings should be, with a tender, juicy, flavorful filling that mixed ground pork, green onion and spices. The sweet-​and-​sour dipping sauce served on the side had just enough of a kick of red pepper flake, to compliment them. Plus, you got eight or nine good-​sized pieces for that low price. Not a bad deal at all!
Initially, I had dodged the truck before, because on one particular day, the line was too long and I was too hungry to wait. Or so I thought. NOW that I know what those people were in line for, I think I’ll join them next time. What Tonli serves is so worth it!

Tonli Dumpling House has guoza, dumplings, and ramen on the menu. service was quick.
locale: soma street eats (⁴⁄₁₀)
eats: braised pork belly ramen bowl (9)
–ramen definitley from reconstituted noodle, not fresh, still chewy, almost sphaghetti stiff
left in soup for ½ hour, tasted starchy later. not al dente.
–pork lean, not pork belly at all.
–thought broth tasted like chicken till i reread description
broth salty, probably has msg.
premade broth scooped from pot
–egg was ok i guess
no other toppings, not worth 9, 1.5 stars
drips:
–dumplings pricey, may be worth lt. not gonna find out.
$ asked is twice the price at sitdown eateries.

Found them at SoMa Streatfood today, and had their «customer favorite» PB&E, which apparently does not stand for Peanut Butter and Ex. It stands for pork belly and egg… which like 51% guarantees it will rule.
And it did. I was a little uncertain at first, because it looked a little «tofu-​ish» (see photo) but it had that rich fatty taste you’d expect from pork belly, and what I’d describe as a «five spice» flavor. Note for those of you who are not Asian-​fusion-​fetishists: that means a little sweet, not nuclear spicy.
Counter dude said their Volcano Gyoza were also very popular. I’ll give that one a shot next time.