Eastwood’s food claim to fame, historically at least, is the Granny Smith apple. First discovered growing on Maria Ann “Granny” Smith’s property back in the 1860s, the apple is still celebrated with an annual festival. But since Eastwood’s commercial centre was pedestrianised in the 1990s, the suburb has had plenty more to offer in the culinary stakes. The catalyst has been a rapid shift in demographic: as of 2021, more than 48 per cent of residents claim Chinese ancestry, while nearly 9 per cent have roots in Korea.

Rowe Street takes those figures off the page and renders them in full colour, with the Koreatown Project, backed by government funding, accelerating the transformation of the street’s east end from local hub to delicious destination, as vital for Korean cooking and culture as Strathfield or Lidcombe. Jimmy Park, the project’s manager, has witnessed the change first-hand.

“When I came in 1988, there were only two Korean shops on Rowe Street,” he says. “Now, it’s more than 120.”

Those range from hairdressers and boutiques, to the grocers and restaurants that give the street its distinctive flavour. Cross the station, and Korean turns to Chinese, with broad regional representation and plenty outside the lines. Justin Li, a Ryde councillor who recommends treating a visit to Rowe Street a little like a pub crawl, says it’s the demise of a fast-food giant that best represents Eastwood’s evolution.

“An old Chinatown institution, Super Bowl, recently opened on Rowe Street West, ironically where Eastwood’s McDonald’s once stood. It says a lot about the changing demographics and tastes locally over the last few decades.”

The choice of side is your own, but such is the scope that whichever you pick first, odds are it won’t be too long before you’re back for more.

Hwagae Banchan Shop

Exit the station to the east, and you’ll find a clutch of stalls specialising in Korean street food, including tteokbokki, the spicy rice cakes, and flash-fried Korean-style hot dogs. Stop at Hwagae Banchan Shop, though, and the specialty is the array of side dishes – banchan – that accompany a Korean meal. Classics include cabbage or spring onion kimchi tinted red with gochugaru, Korean chilli powder, or braised lotus root. Stock up, then grab some kimbap, Korea’s answer to a sushi roll, to takeaway.

10 Railway Parade, Eastwood

Siroo Rice Cake Cafe

Make for Rowe Street, perhaps drop into ginseng specialist Cheong Kwan Jang, then join the line at Siroo. With South Koreans now drinking 353 cups of coffee per head a year – more than double the global average – the nation’s cafe culture is ever-expanding. That partly explains Siroo’s popularity, but it’s the rice cakes, or tteok, that are the main draw. Made each morning by owner Changhyun Lee, Siroo’s tteok are characteristically chewy, with the injeolmi – made with sticky rice and finished with roasted soybean powder – a signature. Buy a pack, or try it in the cafe’s viral shaved-ice dessert, bingsu.

106 Rowe Street, Eastwood, sirooricecakecafe.com

Miryang

Just a couple of doors up from celebrated Korean-Chinese restaurant Biwon (try the jajangmyeon) is Miryang, a freshly opened soup restaurant channelling South Korea’s south-east. The menu may be short, but the flavours are long and deep in everything from wagyu shank soup and gukbap with sundae – the Korean blood sausage – to the signature, light and aromatic Miryang-style pork soup loaded with spring onions. Season yours with salted shrimp and load up on fluffy rice – refills come free.

104 Rowe Street, Eastwood, instagram.com/miryang_eastwood

Eastwood Mart

There’s no shortage of grocers on this side of Eastwood station: S-Mart is an all-rounder, while KMALL09 (also in Lidcombe) stands out for its epic size, heaving shelves and range of K-beauty products. But Eastwood Mart, smack-bang on Rowe Street, is a classic. Big enough to have the range, small enough to feel personal, it’s the place for bulk kimchi, noodles, seaweed and fresh vegetables. Don’t leave without taking a turn around the “sauce corner” or grabbing some mandu from the staff helming the hotplate out front.

73 Rowe Street, Eastwood

GetBawi

Up the hill from K-bakery La Vigne and tucked into a shopping mall, newcomer GetBawi has quickly garnered a dedicated following. The reason? It’s one of the few Sydney restaurants specialising in hoe, or raw seafood, served here on platters with the likes of perilla leaves for wrapping. Other highlights include spicy blue swimmer crab hotpot and the textural masterpiece that is yukhoe tang tang, featuring high-grade raw beef strewn with umami-rich octopus.

201/62-80 Rowe Street, Eastwood, instagram.com/getbawi

Guk’s Eedaero Gamjatang

For years, family-run Pu Ji Mi sold mountains of jok bal (soy-braised pork hocks) in this unassuming mall. Its closure in February was mourned far and wide, but the good news is that in its place Eastwood now has its own outpost of Guk’s Eedaero Gamjatang, Jongguk Lee’s cult soup kitchen. Split a gamjatang with friends, and it’ll be rich from long-simmered pork bones and doenjang, spicy from gochugaru and gochujang and loaded with perilla, potatoes and enoki mushrooms. Add a round of ice-cold Cass lager to keep the vibes high.

202/62-80 Rowe Street, Eastwood

Dae Jang Kum

Crossing the road, Uncles’ Butchery, is a chance to score Korean barbecue meats – Black Onyx chuck tail flap, say – but if you’d prefer to grill here and now, a block up is Dae Jang Kum, where the charcoal burns hot, and the beef intercostal in soy and sesame is the order. Don’t skip the yukhoe, either, which sees Korea’s own beef tartare levelled up with a crisp puffed rice cracker for texture.

29 Rowe Street, Eastwood

Kowloon Cafe

Loop back, take the station underpass and suddenly, the foot traffic intensifies – especially on Saturday when pedestrian-only Eastwood plaza hosts night markets. The plaza is where to take your pick of cha chaan tengs, the nostalgic Hong Kong-style cafes. At Canton Cafe, it’s all Cantonese fare and diner classics, with an afternoon tea menu that clocks on at 2.30pm. At Hong Kong Bing Sutt, it’s all about the scallion-oil set, featuring spring-onion tossed eggs and noodles, served with a crisp chicken thigh and a pineapple bun. The Eastwood branch of Kowloon Cafe pairs a fitout encompassing one of Hong Kong’s distinctive double-decker trams with beef brisket curry, bouncy fish balls and towering French toast dripping with butter.

1/148 Rowe Street, Eastwood, kowlooncafe.com.au

Eastwood Markets

Stroll a little further, and you’ll reach the permanent markets, where stallholders offer tight menus of specialty dishes. Teochew cuisine offers an array of braised meats, including pork hock and beef shank, while Malaysia Ikan Bakar underscores most dishes with fiery sambal (chilli paste), including the namesake grilled sambal fish. And while nearby Hungry Paulie is the go-to restaurant for Taiwanese, don’t skip Canteen Taiwan right here, where the lu rou fan, aka braised pork rice, rich with pork fat, is the name of the game.

178 Rowe Street, Eastwood

Wang Wang BBQ

There are a few notable barbecue shops on this side of Eastwood Station, BBQ One among them, but none attract the same kind of clamour as Wang Wang BBQ, founded by career barbecue chef Yong Luo. Line up under the crimson and golden signage and the window couldn’t be more enticing. Roasted ducks and soy-glazed chickens have lacquer-like glaze, roasted pork has a handsome crust, but it’s the roasted sausage and the char siu, juicy and glistening, that will keep you coming back time and time again.

25/1 Lakeside Road, Eastwood

Traditional Cantonese Taste

Dive deep into Eastwood Village Square and there’s so much to appreciate: handmade tofu, the epic seafood platters at Taste of Shunde, the school prawns and live seafood at the fishmongers. But for cheung fun, the slippery Cantonese rice noodle roll, made fresh to order? It has to be Traditional Cantonese Taste. Rice noodles are steamed in a sheet, folded around fillings – prawn and scallop, say, or chicken and cordyceps flower – then served under a sweet soy sauce that soaks into all the crevices. Don’t sleep on the congee either, which is even more comforting.

9A/1 Lakeside Road, Eastwood

Super Bowl Chinese Restaurant

A few doors up, a neon Super Bowl sign marks another branch of this storied late-night Chinatown institution. The surrounds here are more comfortable than at the original, and the menu packs all kinds of classics, from roasted pork ribs to XO pippies. And while live seafood is to become more of a focus – the menu lists lobster with salted egg and ginger-shallot coral trout – early signatures include fragrant Hakka-style salt-baked chicken, and comforting congee with fried bread for dipping.

193 Rowe Street, Eastwood

Hon Kee Hong Kong Dessert

The last few blocks of Rowe Street’s restaurant strip buzz. Expect Chinese grocers, baked goods and dumplings, plus everything from stonepot fish to crisp-bottomed sheng jian bao, pork soup dumplings, (here’s looking at you, 257 Home Kitchen). Zheng’s Skewer BBQ – from the team behind Jin’s Grilled Meat Pies – is worth a stop, but if sweets are the order, there’s no going past Hon Kee Hong Kong Dessert. Come nightfall, tables heave with bowls of milk pudding or glutinous rice with coconut. Both are good picks, but the mango pomelo sago is the fan favourite: cool, refreshing, with bursts of citrus, there’s no better dish to close out an evening.

2/239 Rowe Street, Eastwood, instagram.com/honkeehkdessert