Canton Cafe 煮意 Eastwood — Restaurant in Sydney

Solid and satisfying Hong Kong-style meal, especially if you’re craving that sweet-salty BBQ meat over rice combo. The BBQ pork and roast duck rice had a generous portion of meat, and while the duck was juicy and well-rendered with crisp skin, the BBQ pork leaned slightly dry depending on the slice. The side of pickled cucumber helped cut through the richness, and the sweet chilli sauce was a nice touch, though a more traditional plum or hoisin might’ve suited it better.

The claypot rice with preserved sausage and BBQ pork belly was comforting and hit the right smoky, savoury notes you expect, especially once you mix in the soy sauce and scrape up those crispy bits from the bottom. The pork belly was fatty but flavourful, though some might find the sausage a bit too sweet. Finally, the beef tongue curry baked rice was heavy, cheesy, and nostalgic, like a Hong Kong take on lasagna without the pasta. It’s rich, salty, and definitely not light, but satisfying in its own way if you're in the mood for something cheesy and filling.

Overall, the food comes out fast and hot, portion sizes are solid, and while it doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it nails the basics. Good for a casual, satisfying HK-style meal...

This review is averaged based on 3 visits. First time came for the breakfast set menus (available until 12 noon), then dinner, then lunch. Breakfast set menus come with a choice of drink are worth the value 👍. The Nissin Instant Noodles with pork bone broth soup is our favourite, flavoursome without making you thirsty. The Hot pot rice rolls is also interesting & not too heavy for breakfast. Just wasn’t impressed by the western dishes we had for dinner: steak & chicken chop. They were bland and felt like a chore to eat. So we asked for some creamy white sauce to eat the steak with and after numerous attempts to explain what we’re after (note: some staff here don’t speak much English), the staff gave us tartare sauce. Not what we wanted, we didn’t touch the sauce at all and was surprised the sauce was chargeable (we’d be fine if had been advised about charge in advance). Lastly, we came for the noodles again for lunch (missed the breakfast time) and had the instant noodles again, this time they have a new special: Lava French Toast, which is filled with rich & decadent salted egg yolk custard. We’d happily come back for the instant noods & lava french toast but not the HK style...

Recently renovated Cantonese restaurant, this one is the one to visit if you're after decent ambience with best seating and nice lighting inside. The services from floor staff are inconsistent though, when sometimes you get good service from staff who can communicate in reasonably good English and other times you get staff member who can't understand anything in English and made error with our drink orders. They allow payment with credit card without surcharge which is a good policy. Prices are comparable with their close competitors in the area and still represents a good value for money.

The dishes are standard Cantonese similar to its close competitors in Eastwood suburb. We've tried their shared dishes like fried barramundi with black-bean sauce, broccoli with chinese sausage and cured meat and the tofu with roast pork in hot-pot which is the highlight of our visit. We've also tried their Cantonese BBQ pork and roast pork with the claypot rice, and they're quite good. The only let-down is the place does not serve chopped chillies with soy-sauce like other Canto place...