Friendship Attics – strange name, great place for a special birthday

Steamed egg in tomato

Cantonese restaurants are everywhere in Sydney.  And the standard of most of them are pretty damn good.  So what is it that makes one more of a favourite for me than others ?

My dad recently turned 70, and my mum organised a surprise birthday bash with 70 of his oldest and closest friends.  And she organised it at Friendship Attics.  From Singapore, I was left wondering what on earth is Friendship Attics, and why there ? When I got to Sydney that week and we went to recee the place, so we knew how to set up etc, I found out why.

1) It’s not an enormous restaurant that can seat 700 guests.  It comfortably fit all of my dad’s friends and we got to book out the entire restaurant, keeping it cosy and intimate.

2) The staff were so helpful and so friendly and truly made having the event there a breeze

3) The food !  Typical Cantonese fare, but mum selected the menu and boy did she choose well.

First course of cold cuts

We started with the traditional banquet first course of a selection of cold starters: jellyfish, various cold cuts of pork and of course, crispy suckling pig.

broccoli with crab meat

The rest of the meal just seemed to be endless dish after dish, but the standouts for me were the lobster with ginger and shallots, the green green broccoli with crab meat (made eating greens a breeze), fish cooked two ways (deep fried head and tail with stir fried fillets, and steamed egg in tomato.  Sounds weird, looks weird, tastes terrific.

Of course there was “longevity noodles” – long strands of ee-fu noodles which are meant to signify long life.

Friendship Attics’ location is close enough to Darling Park on Sussex Street that there is no real need to make the trek to Chinatown to fight for carspace or the crowds to get a great yum cha as well.

Friendship Attics Chinese Restaurant
321 Sussex Street, Sydney
Tel: 9261 2177

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