Rhodes Phoenix (3) - Rhodes

Back at Rhodes Phoenix to nut out a few more details about this venue. Why not make a dinner out of it?

We asked what was good to eat for the night and the waiter recommended super large juicy oysters ($9 each). Erm, a touch expense? But I don't think anyone was thinking about that. Hence, we ordered an oyster each.

These oysters were very large and plump. Served with vermicelli, shallot and XO sauce - it was slightly not saucy enough. A bit more XO probably would have made it much yummy - not that it was bad... just not excellent.

XO oysters

I wanted a deep-fried taro duck dish. This was very thinly sliced duck with an inch-thick of mashed taro then deep fried. There was a slight lack of salt if you ate it by itself - but if you added the sauce, it bought along a bit more taste and zing~ What I liked about it is the smooth taro bits. Most people, I imagine, would probably prefer the crunchy deep fried substance which encases the taro and duck.

taro duck

My mum ordered a vegetarian dish comprised of bamboo shoot, mushrooms, black funghi and broccoli. Ummm... lots of veges with clear oyster sauce based sauce? :P

mixed veges

We ordered a live fish... not sure of the english name for it... but they overdid this one. It was oversteamed and the fish skin was broken. Even though it appeared much over-steamed, the meat was still tasty and fresh and subtly sweet. It was very easy to eat such that the six of us gobbled up the >1kg fish in no time.

steamed fish

A combination tofu hot pot was ordered. The seafood variety was pretty good. I liked the scallops particularly. But overall, the tofu hot pot was averagely good.

combination tofu hot pot

My mum wanted a seafood nest. This was a thin rice noodle deep-fried into a nest shape then filled with seafood and beans. The seafood here was really quite good. The squid was tender, the scallop was sweet and the prawns were crunchy - even if all were once a frozen variety. Yum nonetheless. My parents said that the "nest" itself lacked a bit of flavour - but really, deep-fried rice noodles... it's like deep-frying rice, there's not supposed to be flavour in that...right?

seafood nest

Complementary dessert was "lo mai chi" and deep fried sweet red bean pastry. The lo mai chi was stuffed with sweet taro paste and coated with desiccated coconut. This was quite nice. The deep fried red-bean pastry was very very sweet... a bit over the top sweet? It was deep-fried very well though. Not too burnt - it was golden brown.

lo mai chi with taro filling

deep fried sweet red bean pastry

Not too much to complain about. My partner's parents said that the dishes seemed to lack a bit of taste (not salty enough), but I thought everything was nicely subtly flavoured. The service was good - not sure if it was because they were aware of our intentions or if they are normally this good. I guess we will only find out if we return to the restaurant after the big day. As for the ambiance... there just so happened to be a small wedding occuring at the time we dined. Made for heaps of noise and a bit of ruckus.

Ratings:
Food - 8/10
Service - 7.5/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 7/10
Overall - 29.5/40

Rhodes Phoenix
Level 5, Rhodes Shopping Centre
1 Rider Boulevard
Rhodes
NSW 2138
Tel: (02) 9739 6628