A few months ago a friend of mine introduced me to this modest diner located in West Ryde, a north west suburb of Sydney. The diner is called Dragon House. From the outside it looks just like other Chinese diners. When you step inside, you are greeted by the friendly owner and sit yourself at any available old fashioned tables with clear plastic covers and modest chairs, as you'd expect from a local diner in most suburbs. My attention was then taken to the artworks and spiritual pieces hanging on the walls and at the cashier in front of the kitchen. The artworks and decorations show the mix of Indian and Chinese traditions. This is what this restaurant is all about, Chinese food cooked by people in India, a fusion between Chinese techniques and Indian flavours.
When you look through the menu, you find Chinese food with Indian spices and flavours in the descriptions. After dining there a few times now, I have tried several of the Chef's specialties. My favourites are the Bombay style garlic prawn and Masala fried rice. Just thinking about them makes me salivate. First of all, let me point out that the servings are all more than decent size with lots of the protein ingredients and nice vegetables - not the kind of servings where you'll find more onions than the heros of the dish. Back to the Bombay garlic prawn, the prawns are big and juicy. They are cooked to perfection leaving them still crunchy with crispy light batter. The sauce is full of flavour, slightly sweet with the perfect consistency, not too thick. The garlic flavour is just right, not over powering like a lot of other garlic prawns I've had. Although it's not mentioned in the menu description, I can taste some Indian spices in the sauce and the prawn batter. Of course, it'd be a recipe if they described all the spices on the menu.
The memorable side dish is the Masala fried rice. We got the combination version but you can pick your protein or the vegetarian version. It's similar to nasi goreng with similar ingredients plus the Masala spice. The other dishes I have tasted include the crispy chili beef, Manchurian chicken, and the coconut water. The crispy beef is quite dry for my liking, it's thinly sliced and deep fried than glazed by dark sauce. The chicken is nice and tender with Manchurian sauce which is onion based stir fry sauce with light spices. The coconut juice was refreshing and slightly sweet. However, it's not the freshest I've had. It taste a little like the frozen ones you get from Asian groceries.
Overall, their menu contains mostly 10 or so different recipe bases with different proteins and vegetables together with about the same amount of different bases of side dishes in either rice or noodle. For the price tags, they have some of the best tasting food I've had even when compared to some of the popular restaurants I've visited.
If you want that happy satisfied feeling from your food without putting a hole in your pocket, I highly suggest to try this little diner in West Ryde. I personally will go there every time I need satisfying cheap meals or just to try a few more different dishes they have. One more thing, being a local diner that the Dragon House is, you wouldn't expect the good service and options offered by the owner that I've experienced there.
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