Raymond's at Malua Bay — Restaurant in Malua Bay

(4.5 stars)

Regional Chinese restaurants have long fascinated me, particularly for specialisations that have arisen in response to feedback from the local community. After seeing Raymond's at Malua Bay featured on the ABC’s Chopsticks or Fork? and finding myself twenty minutes from the restaurant, I had to check it out. In the relevant episode, so-called food enthusiast Jennifer Wong cooed about the use of locally gathered Mogo honey so I gave it a whirl in black pepper honey chicken ($23). With thin slabs of chicken breast and button mushrooms, the resulting savoury dish was not what I expected to receive, and I enjoyed it more than I expected to.

The restaurant itself faces the waters of Malua Bay. The soft blue, contemporary Chinese fit-out would not look out of place in Sydney, particularly the round backlit graphic art piece based on the Hokusai wave. It’s the third location for Raymond Ng’s forty year old business, with the 2019 bushfires destroying his last store. The sea-facing glass box is the ground floor of a boutique pet-friendly hotel called Abode Malua Bay. With a back-lit bar, and a decent wine and craft beer list drinks are definitely part of package here. The Brookvale Vodka Peach Iced Tea ($9) was a bit too Nanna’s undies drawer floral for me, but I loved Capital Brewing Co.’s Hang Loose Juice ($10).

The menu is mostly arranged by protein, followed by a list of sauces in which it can be cooked. From the list of house specialities, the standout is deep fried eggplant ($20). This heaping plate of wickedly good eggplant slices with candied crisp batter and soft, slippery eggplant interiors is taken to the edge of burnt in a toffee-like sauce. By contrast sizzling seafood ($32) is relatively plain, presenting a collection of mussels, locally sourced king prawns, tender squid, white-fleshed fish and seafood extender (the menu calls it crab) in a delicate garlic sauce on a sizzling platter. The same toothsome king prawns come up well in a bright orange sambal ($32) pumped up with extra chilli on request. Combination fried rice ($12/small) is notable for the tasty red-edged BBQ pork slices, clearly...

Considering the generally good reports we had heard about Raymond’s we decided to have dinner there. The teapot was so over full that when it was poured, it leaked all over the table. That was just the beginning. We ordered our meals and changed one in the process however the meal that we initially ordered turned up anyway. We ordered desert, the bread and butter pudding was swimming in a bowl of liquid And anyone who’s ever eaten Britain butter pudding or know that it is firm and can be cut like cake and does not come in some strange sort of a junket sloppy mess in exchange for not being able to eat this. We asked for it to be taken back and ordered Deep fried ice cream which arrived looking as if it had been heated up in a microwave and not actually deep-fried as it was so tough you couldn’t get the fork into it. The actual Chinese meals were average. San chow bo Bao had no mince in it whatsoever and was rather tasteless. There were no vegetables other than onion with each meal and if you wanted vegetables then that was not a side but a separate meal. While the staff were pleasant, they got the order wrong, didn’t replace the leaking teapot with something that didn’t leak and didn’t reset the table with fresh napkins which had been used to soak up the water we got up and went and got them from the counter. Overall it was a very dismal experience and a very expensive one at $200+ for two entrees, three meals, a cup of tea, a mocktail and one cocktail. I definitely would not bother going there again. The following day I went to the North Street Chinese restaurant in Batemans Bay. The food was fresh and tasty and included an array of vegetables, the teapot didn’t leak and it only cost me $16. The staff were also attentive and friendly and the meal was served...

Absolutely appalling service and food.

After waiting at our table to be approached / offered water, the waitress walked past and barked at us, "You know you have to order at the front, right?" This was despite that fact that there were three waitresses on, and a guy behind the counter. No greeting, no smile, no manners from any of the staff.

Ordered our food at the counter. Waited at the table for our meals, and one of them never arrived. Had the waitress come up to our table twice to ask what meal we were missing. Then the guy from the front came over and told us that we never paid for the meal, and practically shoved the receipt in our face to prove that he was right.

Finally received all of our meals, and out of the 6 of us at the table, no one enjoyed their food. Main meals were served with no vegetables (which is often the best part of Chinese food) and instead were accompanied by a bed of raw onion or spring onion, with two pieces of capsicum. Garlic prawns were bland and inedible, and again served with raw onion. Calamari was clearly pulled straight out of the freezer.

We got up to leave after eating a small portion of our meals, and the guy from the counter chases us out to demand we pay for the meal that they missed. When we went to pay, I told him we were not happy with the food or the service, but he didn't seem care.

Myself and my family will not be wasting any of our money in this...