The East, Macquarie St, East Circular Quay

The East, Macquarie St, East Circular Quay
Wednesday 2 August, 2006

This is one of our favourite Chinese restaurants. The food is consistently good and I always leave feeling very satisfied. It's a little on the $$$ side, but worth it. Located along the strip of shops/ restaurants underneath 'The Toaster' it commands a breathtaking view across to the Harbour Bridge, so not surprisingly, attracts tourists.

It is a little hit & miss with the service - some staff are impeccable and some are down-right hopeless but it's really all about the food. Tonight, we were dining at The East before heading off to see, 'The Hanging of Jean Lee' at the Opera House Studio. There was a minor inconvenience with our table - we were seated, then asked to move then requested to move again! What the@!*

The music playing tonight was attempting to prepare us for battle - as my dinner buddy suggested, they had purchased the latest orchestral CD from the Opera House and played it in high rotation. It was alarming....

Now to the food - we ordered one of our old favourites salt & pepper squid - this was mildly disappointing - it didn't have a kick but did have a good smattering of salt & pepper. Then, we ordered fillet steak with wasabi - WOW! My dinner buddy had been raving about this dish since first trying it at Golden Century at Fox Studios. It is now firmly on my 'must have' list. The fillet steak was so tender and it was smothered in wasabi - it definitely cleared the sinuses.

We decided to wait a while before ordering our final dish - eggplant & pork hot pot. This was sensational. It had the sweetness of the eggplant with the savoury of the pork - we both devoured this dish and decided that it also had to be added to the 'must have' list.

After we finished dinner we were sitting back chatting when my dinner buddy's CEO walked in. He came over to the table immediately with his wife, introduced himself to me and picked up the bill. Within moments he had paid for our dinner despite our protests! What a lovely gesture - this hasn't happened to me before, so it was a little overwhelming. What a lovely way to end a meal!

The East - Shop 8, No 1 Macquarie Street, East Circular Quay - (02) 9252 6868