Eastwood Garden Peking Restaurant

By Franz Scheurer

The concept of Peking Duck (2 or 3 courses) is quite simple: take a duck, loosen the skin from the body, then pump air between the skin and the body to completely separate it, brush the skin with maltose, half fill the inside of the duck with broth and sew it up, dry the duck in front of a fan, then roast it. To serve, just the crisp skin is carved from the duck and presented with wafer thin steamed pancakes, Hoi Sin sauce, cucumber and green onion pieces for the customer to roll up and eat. The second course can be San Choy Bau, the duck meat chopped and mixed with diced water chestnuts, onion and soy sauce and served hot in an ice-cold lettuce leaf cup. Alternatively the second course can be a stir-fried noodle dish utilising the duck meat. And the third course is usually a clarified broth made from the carcass. The concept is straightforward, the execution is not; as with so many supposedly simple dishes this is incredibly hard to perfect. At the Eastwood Garden Peking Restaurant they do the best Peking Duck I’ve tasted in Australia. (Sorry Ming, this one beats yours!)

With such a great start to the meal our expectations were high, and the ‘Dry Fried King Prawn’, a generous serving of very fresh deep fried prawns in a light batter with spicy salt and chilli was excellent, as was the ‘Braised Sea Cucumber’ served with braised duck web, fabulously textured dried Chinese mushrooms and braised iceberg lettuce. Absolutely superb. If a restaurant has green beans on the menu, I will order them. They’re a good ‘yardstick’ by which to measure the chef’s skills in cooking vegetables. The ‘Pan-fried String Beans with Minced Pork’ again showed the chef’s mastery of his craft and a small serving of ‘Jelly fish’ confirmed that he knows how to handle textures just as brilliantly.

As this is a restaurant specialising in Northern Chinese cuisine you must try the dumplings, but I do suggest you do this on a separate night to do it justice. They’re glorious but filling. My favourite has to be the ‘Fried Shallot Cake’, obviously freshly made and a joy to behold, and the ‘Sesame Roll with minced pork & Pickles’ is a work of art. You might also order a hotpot and try some of the ‘Peking Bread’ with it, it’s gloriously gluggy, squishy, very white and all the other things that are supposedly bad for you, but it mops up juices like nothing else.

The room is VERY brightly lit, but not too clinical. Tables are spaced generously and the chairs are comfortable. The specials are displayed like framed artwork on the walls, the tables are covered in linen and the glassware is surprisingly good. Service is Western-style excellent, not at all what one would expect in a Chinese restaurant frequented by an almost 100% Asian clientele. They are BYO and the wine service again is better than we’ve come to expect from suburban Chinese restaurants.

It takes a lot for me to be impressed with a Chinese Restaurant. So far there has been only one in Sydney that I really like. Now there are two, and, at this point, the Eastwood Garden Peking Restaurant has the edge!

Score: 7.5/10

For more information or bookings:

Eastwood Garden Peking Restaurant

167 Rowe Street

Eastwood

Tel.: 02 9804 1289