April 7, 2014

Emperors Garden BBQ, Sydney

Guest blogger edition

Emperor’s Garden BBQ restaurant is literally a Chinatown institution. A hole in the wall serving the classic Hong Kong style BBQ meats with a restaurant on the side serving Hong Kong BBQ cafe style cuisine since at least the early 1990’s (can anyone confirm how long its actually been there??) My family used to always get the takeaway roast duck, roast pork, soy sauce chicken, soy sauce duck and BBQ pork (char siu) there but it has been a long time since I’ve actually eaten inside the restaurant.

I remember when my Dad was more young and able, he would take us to this restaurant on few occasions when we actually ate in the city. He seemed to know one of the chefs there and would always strike up conversations with them. When a Groupon voucher presented itself to me for a Peking duck banquet for 2 for $39, these memories came flooding back and I couldn’t wait to try it again.

We booked in for a Friday night and the restaurant was fairly quiet at 630pm. We handed in our voucher and got seated before receiving the first of our duck courses.

Duck spring roll with sweet and sour sauce – surprisingly tasty with plenty of duck meat inside and a hot crisp pastry on the outside.

Duck sang chow bau (lettuce bowl) – a pretty standard duck dish with traditional flavours – good but nothing exceptional

Peking duck – fantastically cooked and flavoured duck. Only difference is that this duck was a bit on the meaty side (some like it like this, some don’t) and in the words of Manu ‘where is the sauce!’ there wasn’t enough sauce 🙁

The banquet also had a combination chow mein – standard HK cafe style food with crispy noodles and a variety of toppings. Lastly there was a small dessert of mango pudding served in a tea cup, lol.

Overall a fairly decent meal for the price and I was left more than satisfied.

Oh, it also came with a drink each.