The Local Chinese – May Kwai Restaurant

A good local Chinese restaurant is very important. Especially, if like my family, Chinese is staple takeout food and often the first choice for family dinners when no one’s bothered to cook. Our local Chinese restaurant is May Kwai on New South Head Road, Rose Bay, chosen for its extensive menu and fresh dishes.

Chinese is a very hard meal to eat with different people as families often order the same three or four dishes each time, sharing them amongst the table. Every family has their favourites and whilst spring rolls and dim sum are usually up there for starters, the mains can greatly vary depending on your family’s tolerance for seafood, chilli and more exotic choices.

My relatives order in such a way that we ensure to tick off a chicken, beef, seafood and vegetable dish. Each family member has their own favourite dish, whether it’s rainbow beef, chicken chow mien or the stir fried mixed veges with shitake mushrooms. When it comes time to order we often voice our choices and a combination of favourites are selected – thus resulting in very similar dishes each time we go out.

Last Friday at May Kwai we ordered the dim sum, spring rolls, prawn cutlets, Salt and pepper squid, Rainbow beef, Pork ribs, Lemon chicken, Prawns with ginger and shallots, Stir fried broccoli and snowpeas, a combination omelette, stir fried mixed vegetables, fried rice and boiled rice. (There were 10 people!) Whilst the majority of dishes are regulars for us, the omelette was something a little different and though we all looked at it with certain scrutiny, we gave in and sampled the foreign dish and were pleasantly surprised. Combination was indeed a perfect name as the omelette contained vegetables, meat and prawns. Sweet in some sections and saltier in others, the omelette was filling and rather tasty. We’ll have to wait to see if it pushes its way into the regular selection!

The food came out quickly but the waiters were busy, which is usual for May Kwai. It was perhaps particularly bad this evening though as there was no one to greet us as we arrived. After a few minutes wait and with only one vacant table large enough to fit our family, we proceeded to walk in and seat ourselves. Though sometimes hard to catch the eye of the waiters during the meal, tonight they were quite attentive to our jug of water and replaced it regularly.

Great for a family dinner but perhaps not ideal for a date, May Kwai is a brightly lit clean cut restaurant with fresh white tablecloths (that don’t often stay white after a bustling meal of spooning food off the platters and swinging them around on the lazy Susan to the next hungry family member). Despite being carpeted, the busy restaurant often becomes very loud when their large tables are filled. This was the case on Friday evening. The table behind us hugely contributed to raising the noise level of the restaurant (which is usually my family’s job) and it got to the point where we were yelling to hear each other – and ourselves.

With quick service and good quality food, you can be in, fed and out as quickly as you need or sit around savouring the different flavours and discussing your fortunes. Expect to pay Eastern Suburbs prices though and be prepared to fight to hear your dining companions above the other patrons.

FYI cookie revealed that I “will enjoy pleasures of life to the highest degree and will share them”. Fantastic!

May Kwai Restaurant

710 New South Head Rd

Rose Bay 2029 NSW