Blue Eye Dragon, Pyrmont

Prawn dumplings with water chestnuts, shallots and Chinese celery $12

Blue Eye Dragon is not your average Taiwanese restaurant. More used to the no-nonsense brusqueness of Mother Chu's, Blue Eye Dragon provides an impressive welcome of mood lighting, crisp tablecloths, real napkins and polished wine glasses waiting on every table.

All these niceties are reflected in the price, of course. Twelve dollars for four prawn dumplings sounds steep at first, but with that first mouthful of sweet juicy plump prawn, singing with shallots and the crunch of water chestnuts, we're wondering whether we should order more.


Salt and pepper soft shell crab $14

Salt and pepper soft shell crab is pleasantly spicy if a little overwhelmed by green onions.


Pork belly slow cooked in soy, aniseed, garlic and light chilli $20

Slow-cooked pork belly is not as sweet as I'd expected, me having immediate visions of a red-braised caramelised pork belly. The dish, I'm told by my Vietnamese colleagues, is very similar to a traditional Vietnamese dish often cooked at home for its long-keeping qualities. The pork is so salty it's almost cured, best eaten in small mouthfuls with plenty of rice.


Queensland scallops in house XO sauce and vegetables $36

The Queensland scallops, on the other hand, are a hit with the entire table. Thick hearty discs of sweetest scallop are seared to a melting tenderness, bathed in the spicy heartiness of XO sauce.


Sticky rice with Chinese wolfberries and sultana $8
finished with sweet peanut powder and coriander

The sticky rice with Chinese wolfberries has a reputation that precedes itself. A gentle mound of sweet sticky rice is crowned with glistening jewels of ruby red wolfberries and shiny sultanas. Surrounded by a moat of peanut powder, a trail of micro coriander leaves look like waterlily fronds.

The sticky rice is sweet and creamy, providing a textural contrast with the crunch of pulverised peanuts and sugar.


Movenpick ice cream $14

A trio of Movenpick ice cream is an instant hit with Mr Two-Year-Old. It's also sneakily demolished by the adults too. Silky smooth in texture, the rich scoop of chocolate is probably my favourite.


Sticky rice cakes in ginger syrup and sweet peanut powder $8

Sticky rice cakes are the last dish to arrive. Four squat balls of dough are covered with more of that sweet peanut powder, a puddle of ginger syrup ringed with thin shavings of candied fresh ginger.

Whilst I'm a keen fan of anything starchy, these rice cakes are so glutinous they threaten to, and do, stick in the throat. More used to sweet rice balls that have a filling inside, these stretchy splodges of glutinous rice dough seems to resist any attempts to bite it in two. The ginger syrup is deliciously sweet and even the candied ginger slices feel medicinally good.

We depart satiated and satisfied, resisting the chance to take home a bag of thirty frozen prawn dumplings ($35 or $25 for 30 pork dumplings).


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Blue Eye Dragon
Shop 2, 42 Harris Street, Pyrmont, Sydney
Tel: +61 (02) 9518 9955

Open for lunch Tuesday to Friday,
dinner Tuesday to Saturday

Related GrabYourFork posts:
Taiwanese--Mother Chu's (Apr 07)
Taiwanese--Mother Chu's (Nov 05)