The Dining & Co Eastwood
51 Rowe Street
Eastwood, Sydney
This place is a chameleon. Up until 4pm each day The Dining & Co Eastwood is a bustling cafe. From 4.30pm it’s a Korean fried chicken restaurant. They are also licensed. You get the best of both worlds here. We were there in the morning, so we experienced the extensive cafe menu. The venue has a quirky decor with an Alice in Wonderland theme, and it even has an upside-down chess board. It’s a long place that seats 100 and also has an upstairs function room.
Being the first coffees of the day we both had our usuals. Sir had a skim flat white and Mlady her half strength soy cappuccino. The coffees here are good, really good, and they use Campos.
The Dining Beef Burger was so impressive. For Mlady this towering and incredibly tasting burger had ‘the works’. It certainly had the WOW factor when it arrived. The burger had beetroot, bacon, pineapple, tomato, onion, lettuce, cheese, aioli and also came with a side serving of chips. We both enjoyed this - especially Mlady.
Sir is quite partial to corn fritters, so we had to order these! With the substantial serving of freshly made corn fritters there was a perfectly poached egg, a pile of smashed avocado and tomato. You can have a choice of smoked salmon, halloumi, mushroom or bacon. No surprises that Sir loves his smoked salmon, so he had this with the corn fritters. It’s a generous serving too! This dish had lovely flavours which we both enjoyed, and it was big too.
Eggs Benedict is a bit of a ‘go to’ for Sir so we again had to try this. This vibrant dish had two beautifully poached eggs with runny yolks, tomato and onion, orange hollandaise and Swiss chard on an English muffin. You have a choice to add either ham, bacon, mushroom or smoked salmon. This time we had the mushroom. The earthiness of the mushroom really added a lovely visual and taste sensation. All the ingredients went so well together. It had wonderful flavours and we both really enjoyed it.
We tried a pasta dish next and went with the prawn pasta. The pasta was squid ink which is very bold in colour, and it came with chilli, garlic, preserved lemon, cherry tomatoes, rocket, rustic crumb and finger lime. There was a lot going on with colour and taste and it all worked very well together. It was yet another very nice and well-balanced dish.
How good was the French toast! It was actually a Brioche French Toast with vanilla mascarpone, maple syrup, pistachio snow, berry compote and fresh berries. A novel syringe housed the maple syrup which you could squirt into or onto the brioche bun. The choice is yours. We - well M’Lady did - squirt it on top for good coverage. Oh wow - this really was so mouthwatering. It was such a pretty dish - almost a shame to eat it - but we did. It had such amazing tastes sensations. This was one of the best Brioche French Toast’s we have had.
The food at The Dining & Co Eastwood is fresh, colourful and scrumptious with substantial servings. All the dishes were beautifully and appetisingly presented. It’s a sprawling place with plenty of spaces for small or large groups too.
The menu is varied with a lot to choose from - so something for everyone and you will not leave hungry. Sir and Mlady dined as guests of The Dining & Co Eastwood. Special thank you to Johan for looking after us and taking time from his busy schedule to chat with us. Big thank you also to Claire for taking care of us.