Can't go kwong

Three times now I have tried to go to Bill Grangers and Kylie Kwongs restaurant - Billy Kwong. The first time we were told the wait would be a few hours and we were just too hungry to hang around. The second time we tried, the couple we were going with temporarily split up. Last week is was a case of third time lucky and my God were we lucky. We went along early enough and the restaurant was already completely full with a great buzz. it's a small restaurant with just stools at the tables. We gave our name and mobile number and headed across to the Dolphin Hotel for a cocktail. The Dolphin has recently been renovated and they have an excellent outdoor cocktail area that was perfect on the balmy evening we went. Just as we were finishing up our cocktails we got the call to say our table was ready. Perfect timing.

I didn't even have to look at the food menu because as we were picking the wine the couple next to us received the most amazing duck dish. I'm a big fan of duck so there was no question about what I was going to order. For entree we shared a tofu and mushroom salad that was so full of flavour. Salad doesn't usually do it for me but this one was different. Made up mostly of herbs rather than lettuce the dish was completely wiped clean when the waitress cleared it away.

The duck was out of this world. Crispy duck with a cinnamon and plum sauce with lots of roasted plums on the side. I'm going to be dreaming about this dish for a while now. Even the fried rice that accompanied it was delicious. The portions are quiet big so we found that sharing the entree and main was enough for us. Even including the wine the bill was very reasonable.

Billy Kwong gets a big thumbs up from me. It was definitely worth the 3 previous attempts to get there.