Eastern Garden Chinese Restaurants

Where has Jeremy and his fantastic crew gone? We love this place and its closed. Where are you??? We miss you!!!

OMG Yum Cha! This review only relates to the Yum Cha and my god, was it good!
We met a Chinese friend and her partner here for Saturday afternoon Yum Cha (btw there are few better ways to spend a Saturday afternoon than munching on Yum Cha and hanging with friends). So if Burnside could lay ANY claim to Chinatown, this is it! In fact, the suburban setting meant it was better than Chinatown! A little more relaxed.
I’m all about the dumplings and they do a great job. The wrappers of the steamed dumplings are delicate and the fillings delicious. We had prawn dumplings that tasted both fresh and flavourful. We also had a prawn & chive dumpling and a prawn & spinach dumpling. Both were good but the prawn & chive dumpling was perfection. Other steamed choices included the scallop dumplings and the chicken & prawn dumplings — both awesome!
On the fried/​baked side of things, we had the radish cakes (better than the name might imply), barbecue pork buns, and red bean sesame buns. My partner raved about the barbecue pork buns and I was pleasantly surprised by the red bean sesame buns.
We also had some delicious green beans mildly spiced with chilli. All washed down with some lovely tea. We even found a bit of room for mango pancakes (seriously yum).
I’ve come across comments on the service. Having been to other yum chas, I found the service here efficient and appropriate. Service isn’t really what yum cha is about. Yum Cha, in my humble opinion, is about presenting the customer with a variety of yummy delicacies quickly. Yes, staff may be pushing you to order something before you are ready but that is part of the experience.
On a Saturday here there are two sittings, 11 am and 1 pm. Bookings are essential. Some parking in the back, but it fills up fast. Casual, comfortable vibe. I almost didn’t feel like I was in Burnside!

This is a very big, airy and imposingly handsome restaurant with a large carpark. Restaurant diners enter at the front while a roaring trade in takeaways is taking place at the back.
We went early for a pre-​movie meal and were the first in the restaurant. Settled in a nice wallside table-​for-​two, we were just lifting our drinks to toast the delight of our rare little date night when there was a wild kerfuffle at the door as a party of seven arrived — four adults with three excited small children. To our utter incredulity, in this vast expanse of empty tables in the empty restaurant, the rowdy family was guided to the round table directly beside us. Why?
They were nice people. The kids were nice. It was not their fault. But their placement was a discourteous error of judgement by management. And for us, a quiet meal was not to be.
We ordered pretty standard favourite Chinese fare — fried fish with corn sauce, Szechuan chicken, refried beans with pork. The chicken was thinly sliced and generous in quantity. There was a barely visible hint of vegetable — onion and capsicum — in a very thin and rather sweet sauce. I was glad I had ordered extra chili. The beans were of perfect texture with a good hint of chili — but they, too, were very sweet. Only the fish was not too sweet. It was lightly battered and perfectly fried with a thinnish but tasty sweetcorn sauce with dots of spring onion to provide little crunches of freshness. It was very nice — but lacked the gastronomic flair one finds expressed in that same dish in Gouger St restaurants.
And that pretty much sums up the restaurant. It is big and family-​friendly, utterly convenient for Eastern suburbs dwellers. It is a nice, efficient suburban Chinese restaurant. No more. No less.

Great place for big families, fast and friendly staff, shared 8 meals between our group the other night and all were very tasty.

I’m another who is a massive fan of the yum cha here. It is genuinely good. Great selection, and this compliment is coming from a guy who doesn’t eat seafood. Imagine how little you could usually find that doesn’t have at least some prawn.
The service is good, too. Some other places make you feel lucky if the waitress grunts, let alone smile. Not here. They’re nice here.
The let down is the standard of the non yum cha stuff. It isn’t terrible, it’s just not up to the standard set by the yum cha service.

OK, now I have to say here, I’m giving 4 stars — but I’d happily give them five for the yum cha, they absolutely excel at this, and I’ve been there with a couple of chinese colleagues (we did the Adelaide yum cha circuit together) at different times and was thoroughly impressed with everything. I’d even give them six, it’s that good. So now you’re asking why only four, right? For somewhere that does an incredibly good job on yum cha, the dinner food, and particularly the takeaway, is nowhere as impressive — not bad, just not impressive — it’s almost like they’re going through the routine of doing ‘chinese food’ because they don’t do an all day yum cha.
I’m not saying it’s bad, really — it’s just nowhere what I expected from somewhere that does so, so well with one part of their repertoire.
On a high point, for the area Eastern Garden is very affordable. Recommended.

Eastern Garden is probably the best place for Yum Cha outside of the china town district.
A very traditionally styled Chinese restaurant, complete with decorative folding screens, small sculptures and painted landscapes.
It gets very busy on Saturday and Sunday mornings and so booking is generally a must, unless you are willing to wait for a table. The tables are large and therefore suit big groups and families.
Service of Yum Cha is via tray and a number of delights are on offer. Their dumplings are very good and chili, both fresh and dried paste are available.

Eastern Garden? Yes please! This is Chinese cuisine at its best: fresh ingredients and quality dishes at reasonable prices. Located across from Burnside Village on Greenhill Rd, this restaurant is a must-​try.
My first impression of the place was that it looked like a struggling local Chinese restaurant. When I tried it, however, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
We ordered the spicy crispy beef, vegetable hot pot, and salt & pepper squid all served with steamed rice. Everything was delicious, and I mean everything. I must give extra kudos to the spicy crispy beef though. The texture was different to any other crispy beef I’ve had; it was crunchy yet once you bite, it’s soft and all that juicy sauce flows through. The hot pot didn’t have soggy, overcooked vegetables, and the squid had just the right balance of flavours.
I came here again for Yum Cha on a Friday morning. This place does Yum Cha daily from 11am — 3pm! I was stoked. Pork buns, pork dumplings, king prawn dumplings, you name it — they have it all. Plus, they have these dumplings with what looks like crispy dry noodles. You have got to try it; it’s delicious!
Their staff are very professional compared to other Chinese restaurants I’ve been too, even the upper scale ones. They are polite, pour your tea and set out your cutlery for you.
A highly recommended culinary delight!