257 Home Kitchen

I actually hardly come to Eastwood, so didn't know this restaurant existed. Came here with relatives for some Shanghainese food. This place is well lit, clean with modern decor, and staff were quite attentive. Not gonna lie, I don't really eat Chinese food out since I feel like places aren't really clean, in terms of food/table stuff.

food spread

names of stuff we ordered

didn't have heaps of soup, but decent bit of meat inside and skin was quite thin

love a pan fried bun with a crunchy base

I found it was really cool how they just get a live fish then add some batter and deep fry it, so that the skin ends up 'popping out' and can pull a part out and have deep fried fish. The sweet and sour sauce went really well with it. Would recommend, even though it's turning something healthy into not healthy at all...

Dishes in general were quite nice, well portioned, not overly salty and decently priced.

Ms G's

This place has been on my places to visit or a while, so finally decided to make the trek to this side of the city. There’s a lot of fusion dishes here, where they take the ‘basics’ of cuisines such as Viet, Thai, Korean, Chinese and Western food and literally mix them up. Being on this side of Sydney, dishes are more pricier than your average dinner.

Tables are small and it’s quite crowded inside with dim lighting, so if you’re after a quiet dinner to chat, this isn’t the place for you. Ended up using iPhone torch light to take photos, and other people around turning heads #noshame

food spread

Cheeseburger spring roll-$6

inside

This sounded pretty interesting on paper, and it was really good. Tasted exactly like a cheeseburger with the beef mince, melty American cheese, and pickles wrapped in a spring roll. It was deep fried well with a good crisp and not too oil.

Squash, peas, butterbeans with pickled radicchio, mint, yuzu and white miso ranch-$18

The salad sounded interesting with a yuzu sauce, but I wouldn’t order it again since I don’t think it’s worth the money. The yuzu was quite subtle, and the actual salad was average.

Vietnamese pork and prawn pancake 'Korean style'-$24

The pancake had more toppings than actual batter and was quite oily. There was a nice crunch from the shrimp heads without being too salty, and still interesting to try. It’s just nothing like your Korean pancake as there was a lot of air in between this pancake, and only bits of batter sticking the toppings together.

Tom yum fried rice with snow crab, kaffir lime & crispy wonton skin-$29

Our favourite dish was the fried rice. I didn’t realise you could buy those Thai Tom Yum paste in grocery stores. I still remember when I went to Thailand around 9 years ago that the Tom Yum soup was way too spicy to drink. The fried rice was cooked well with that dry sort of rice texture without being dry, and there was just the right amount of spice for me to enjoy. Would recommend this dish as well.

red lighting=not ideal for food photos

Luyu & YumYum

Came here during their 50% off Dimmi offers since I was craving dim sum (or dumplings, but these technically aren't dumpling as some Chinese people like me will tell you). Got there at 6:07pm, for a reservation at 6pm, and they had already cancelled my reservation already, and I received a 'cancelled booking' email from Dimmi at 6:08pm. Dimmi booking terms allows you to be 15min late, and I'm pretty sure they wanted to take more walk ins than bookings. They still let us be seated, and reminded to give the table back in 1.5hrs, which was already a part of the booking on Dimmi. In hindsight, they did some very sneaky moves to the menu, which I'll explain later. This post is from April but just publishing it late because of a back log of food posts on my blog...

food spread

menu from the night

example of menu when it's not on special

(note price discrepancies)

Snow white dumpling: Prawn, Asparagus, Bamboo shoot & Luyu Home-made Creamy Soup in Chrysanthemum infused Potato Starch Dough-$20 for 4, paid $10 ($13.80 for 3 on website)

inside

These were really cute, but there wasn't much filling inside. It did have a bit of prawn, but not one whole prawn like in other yum cha places. The  dough could have been thinner as well, but I guess they made it thicker cause they needed to do the ears.

Green Lantern dumplings: zucchini, asparagus, celery, shiitake & king oyster mushroom, steamed in rice flour dough-$20, paid $10

This wasn't on the website menu. I like how the dough is green. Didn't eat the chilli, but a nice combo of veggies for the filling without being too salty. 

Manga dumpling hedgehog: King Oyster Mushroom, Chinese Mushroom, Fungi, Carrot, Coriander in Flour Dough Baked-$20 for 4, paid $10 ($12.80 for 3 on website)

inside

Another super cute dish. I did find the dough a bit too dry and thick, and could've had more sauce in the filling. I like how they had bits of pastry to make the spikes.

'Kiss Me' Dumpling': Chicken, Ginger, Shallot & Luyu Homemade Soup in Flour Dough-$20 for 4, paid $10 ($10.80 on website)

inside

Nice thin dough with flavour soup inside. The meat is a bit smaller, and again wished there was more soup. It was average but not amazing.

Mr Luyu fried rice: Duck, Egg, Asparagus, Shallot, Coriander, Baby Corn & Mustard Seeds Stir Fried-$17.80

I love how the fried rice is more 'fried' and has a drier texture in these 'modern Aus' restaurants as not many places can do a good fried rice. There were tiny bits of duck in it, and I think would've been better to have slightly larger pieces for some texture and more flavour.

You can see the price discrepancies, even though they served 4 instead of 3, there is a major price mark up, and even half price, it turns out to be similar price to the website price/previous menu before they had the Dimmi deal. I wonder if they revert back to their old menu/prices after this promotion. Like for some dishes, only saved 80c in total. So half price seems like I'm saving a lot, but just compared to the original price, yeah, it's not really.

The waiters were friendly, and inside sat at a good table with decent lighting, since they use spot lights, and some parts can be dim. Probably will just stick with the asian yum cha places next time.