Raymond's at Malua Bay

Really good Chinese food here. Must dishes we ordered were up to our standards. The eggplant was the best. The garlic prawns were well cooked and the prawns large. The salt and pepper squid was yummy also. The crab soup wasn't the best though, I've had better. The barramundi mornay was random in a Chinese restaurant. Overall pretty good, but I would've have chosen all those dishes again. Yours truly @fooderarri

(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 made in-house.