Xiao Yu Cun Seafood Restaurant (友间厨坊烤吧) – Amazing Grilled Enoki and Eggplant at this Chinese BBQ Restaurant

Tucked away at the corner of Bartley lies Xiao Yu Cun Seafood Restaurant (友间厨坊烤吧), with its sign facing the main road whilst having no obvious path to drive in except a small road further up that brings you one round around the shophouses till you get here. 

Although it was hidden away and isn’t in an obvious place, it’s still packed with tons of people, with the majority of them being mainland Chinese as they came searching for restaurants that fit their taste. The restaurant is quite large, with there being tables both inside and outside allowing it to accommodate large groups of people. Whilst it specialises in firewood dishes; dishes that are cooked using firewood, we did not order any of that as it would be a huge meal and we weren’t going for a heavy meal.

Grilled Golden Mushroom
Starting out with grilled golden mushrooms, we really enjoyed this as it was squashed flat and nicely charred such that the mushrooms had a crisp to it that you usually do not expect unless it’s dried out. The golden mushrooms were well marinated with the usual Chinese grill sauce and garnished with sesame seeds as well. Do order this if you really like enoki as the crisp and the sauce will blow you away!

Grilled Eggplant
The eggplant was really cooked thoroughly, cooked with a light spicy sauce whilst having lots of fried garlic lathered on it. The eggplant was soft and could be peeled off the skin with ease. The crunchy fried garlic and the light spice came together with the light taste of the eggplant to accent the mouthfeel of the whole dish. If you’re a fan of eggplant, this is a dish you would absolutely love!

Griddle Shredded Cabbage
Having to have a vegetable dish to balance the meal, we got this shredded braised cabbage. The cabbage was quite spicy and served to whet your appetite for the other meat dishes. It went really well with rice and had black fungus and spring onions stir fried in it which helped give the dish a variety of textures that blend well together.

Pork and Cabbage Dumplings
The pork dumplings with cabbage were quite standard, tasting as they should, and didn’t have any special taste or texture to stand out. We did enjoy them as we were fans of dumplings, but it’s something that you could skip if you’re not interested in dumplings.

Hand Tore the Lamb Chops
Wanting to have some variation in the dishes we had, we ordered fried lamb ribs too! The lamb ribs were crispy and soft but they were really gamey and left a lingering taste in the mouth. For people who are not a fan, this dish has a really strong aftertaste and you should probably skip this dish.

Assorted Skewers
BBQ Skewers! Otherwise known as chuan chuan (串串), we ordered in a range of assorted skewers from fatty beef, to pork belly and even lamb skewers! Surprisingly, whilst the fried lamb ribs were really gamey, the lamb skewers here were not gamey at all and had a pleasant taste whilst having the texture of lamb. The special beef skewers have green chilli on them so if you can’t take spice, I would suggest avoiding the special beef skewers and get the normal beef skewers instead!

Xiao Yu Cun Seafood Restaurant

Overall, if you’re a fan of Chinese style cooking, this place has quite a good place to have your Chinese cravings satisfied. Special mention to the grilled enoki mushrooms and grilled eggplants as they were the main highlights for our meal and we really loved them. The skewers were really affordable at $1 per skewer so you can be sure to fulfill your cravings of skewers (串串) too! If not, the rest of the dishes were decent and alright but nothing special to shout out about.