Lilymu, Parramatta

June 25, 2024

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LILYMU is a modern pan-Asian restaurant in Parramatta Square serving up dishes inspired by South East Asian flavours. This lush, colourful restaurant is decked out in jewel tones and is part of the ESCA group. There is also a new Head Chef Roy Park. So what are the must order dishes that you simply must order when you go?

Sophia and I rush in to LILYMU. We have a 1pm booking but ended up parking near Parramatta Station rather than finding Parramatta Square (poor Sophia got confused). We arrive at 1:30pm and LILYMU closes at 2pm and we apologise profusely and take a seat. Service from the whole staff is really lovely and the restaurant on this Sunday is about half full. LILYMU is named after the Lily flowers that grace the walls of the restaurant and Mu means adore. Usually if the food is Pan-Asian it can be cause for slight worry (the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none”) but in the hands of the new Head Chef Roy Park from Nel and Banksii there are some real hits coming out. He has tapped his Korean heritage but also uses influences from Thailand, Japan and the Philippines.

Our waitress is fantastic, sometimes waitstaff are so good that you talk about how good they were long after the meal is over and ours was absolutely on the ball. She gives us a good list of recommendations as well as a recommendation for a cocktail called a Chow Sour that we wouldn’t have ordered. It actually ends up being our favourite drink made with Wyborowa Vodka, Soho lychee, yuzu, lemon. Sophia and I aren’t huge drinkers so we order non alcoholic drinks; mine is a Sunnyside with Watermelon, strawberry, mint, apple, lime and strawberry pearls but there are no strawberry pearls in mine and it ends up just tasting like a mixed fruit juice. Sophia chooses a non alcoholic Lychee Mojito 15 Lyre’s White Cane, lychee, lime and soda which she enjoys.

We start our meal with the Hokkaido scallops with a red nahm jin dressing with ginger, kaffir lime, kombu and black lime powder. These fat, raw scallops are served sliced up to make them easier to eat and have a green apple and ginger emulsion that makes them refreshing and moreish.

Sophia and I joke about how far she has progressed. When I first met her she had a very long list of food dislikes to the point of concern. She also didn’t eat raw fish but she now loves raw kingfish and salmon. The signature dish is their kingfish and coconut ceviche with taro chips on the side. These paper thin chips hold up the delicate and creamy raw fish. It doesn’t have a strong citrus flavour to it at all, just a delicious creaminess from the coconut. “I still don’t like cucumber,” Sophia says picking off the cucumber while I LOL.

These tom yum dumplings are robust little mouthfuls filled with a bouncy tom yum flavoured prawn filling and sit in a soy and lime dressing with fried garlic, chilli and coriander on top. Try hard to stop at one and perhaps argue about who gets the last fifth one!

The only dish that I really didn’t got for was the roasted eggplant with apple ponzu and furikake. I do like the crunchy furikake on top but I just didn’t enjoy the flavours of this as much as I thought I would (and I love eggplant) and I love it when eggplant is thicker and more luscious in texture.

We were tossing up between the duck and the steak but it was the inclusion of the Laos sausage that made us choose the duck. The duck is soaked overnight in a mixture of lemongrass, kaffir lime, coriander seeds, star anise and lime leaves. It’s then briefly boiled, coated in a maltose solution and dried for six days. The Laotian duck mince sausage is flavoured with lime leaves, shallots, lemongrass and spices and is actually stuffed under the skin of the roast duck with glutinous rice which is just clever and not to mention delicious. The duck from Wollemi, NSW has a luscious skin and so much flavour. You definitely want rice for that sauce too.

The menu is full of must haves and the beef massaman is one of them. It’s made with Kiwami beef 9+ wagyu with baby potatoes and crunchy, nutty Thai dukkah on top. The wagyu is slow cooked for 24 hours at 88C/190F to tenderise it. I love a sweet and creamy massaman curry and this is so rich in flavour that it’s hard to stop eating.

While you can get steamed rice for your mains. the bonito soy fried rice with a generous amount of add ins like mustard leaf pickle and succulent prawns is a better option. The flavours don’t get in the way of the sauces with the mains and we both really enjoy the added texture from the vegetables and furikake.

There are several groups of people celebrating birthdays (including a Dear Reader’s group!) and we see a lot of the desserts come out with sparklers. And the dessert that everyone orders is their signature coconut sorbet that comes out in a cloud of dry ice. Inside the dessert is pineapple, sago and coconut cream that is topped with apple and pineapple granita and a quenelle of coconut sorbet. It’s the pitch perfect dessert to serve after a rich meal full of Asian flavours and not only does it look good, it’s very moreish and made to share.

I normally don’t go for chocolate desserts but our waitress had not steered us wrong and we are glad that we tried this. The chocolate cake comes as a slice of layer cake. One layer has chocolate ganache while the thinner layer has a hazelnut chocolate Nutella like layer with feuilletine to give it crunch. It’s served with a scoop of milk tea ice cream that tastes like black tea and evaporated milk. It’s light and interesting enough to order again.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you always turn up to places on time, early or late?