This is one of those restaurants you would take your guests out to impress. Enter via Sussex St and…read moremake your way up the stairs featuring stunning koi fish and you'll find yourself in what appears to be a mini aquarium. Bright blue tanks filled with live seafood, where customers can select seafood of their choice.
East Ocean restaurant specialises in live seafood cooking, from parrot fish, to coral trout, barramundi, abalone, eel, lobster and crab to name a few, they certainly shows off their high quality seafood. The restaurant also serves traditional Chinese dishes and causal yum cha with plenty of amazing dumplings amongst your favourite yum cha options from the yum cha cart. You can even order your yum cha via their ipad technology.
Before sitting down to order, make sure you take time to take in the stunning new renovations. The decor flows beautifully from the aquarium space into the main dining room with the koi print featuring on the chairs and in the private dining rooms (both small and large). A deep blue hue features in the print and lighting, making this space ooze a cool sophistication. They have even made considered decisions, such as incorporating fish in the gold chopstick rests on the table.
We are seated at our table by professional wait staff who provide us with menus, tea and dipping sauces ready for our dinner. We peruse the menu and there are endless choices of options we would be more than happy to have. If you're in a larger dining group, we would recommend selecting live seafood and having it cooked to your flavour preference. The fish is at market price, so you do keep having to check with wait staff as to the cost of the particular fish.
We are in a small dining party so we opt for a few smaller dishes to share so we could try a variety of things.
Peking duck is a must order for us, and we like that it comes served two ways; firstly with the pancakes, to wrap with greens and hoi sin, and later it is served as San Choy Bao. The duck is finely chopped with vegetables, garlic and soy sauce and we scoop it ourselves into lettuce leaves that act as cups.
East ocean signature stir fry seafood with pork and vegetables. This stir fry had prawns, mussels, octopus......
We liked the sound of a the sliced boiled free range chicken in ginger and scallion sauce and although it doesn't look like the fanciest dish around, it tastes extra good. The meat is served cold and the flesh is moist and juicy, flavoured with the ginger. Dip this in the scallion sauce and it works so well.
To accompany this we have some lightly tossed snow peas, rice and Chinese tea. The lazy Susan in the middle of the table makes for sharing to be quite easy.
You always have to leave room for dessert at a Chinese restaurant and this is primarily due to Mango Pancakes. These are thin crepe pancakes filled with diced mango and cream, a perfect summer dessert. We finish off with fresh fruit, as is common for a Chinese restaurant and a good way to clean the palette.
The menu has a good range of seafood, pork, beef, vegetables, rice and noodles so it would be suitable for any dining party. They are known for their seafood, so we would recommend incorporating as many seafood dishes as you can. It also suits those with particular nutrition requirements, and these are easily identified on the menu. Although we didn't drink on our visit, the restaurant has a huge bar and wine list available.
We would like to thank Spooning Australia for arranging our visit and to East Ocean Restaurant for the hospitality provided. We love this restaurant and look forward to returning to try the yum cha sometime.
