1 /5 Simon Cheng: I wanted this place to succeed, but it is probably the most disappointing meal I’ve ever eaten my entire life. They managed to fail at every single hurdle of my lunch experience so much that I wanted to give zero stars but I can only give one, which is one more than this restaurant deserves.
TL:DR, don’t waste your money here, you’re better off eating KFC at Westfield (because that’s what I did straight after)
Hurdle 1 - Vibe.
From the moment we walked in, the vibe felt off. The restaurant was playing Mandarin pop and Kpop that was paired to someone’s phone that kept cutting out for long moments. The menu has spelling mistakes “Solf sell crab”, the inclusion of “Sate”, Mongolian, and Peking sauces should have been an early warning for what was going to transpire.
Hurdle 2 - Service and kitchen slow.
One waitress on duty, slow to serve customers, we even had to get our own menus and had to ask for water after two tables that walked in after us were offered water. The wait for food is not acceptable, we had to wait 20 minutes for our food and I could see another customer extremely irate with the wait time and had only ordered a Banh Mi but had to sit for a while. Saw a customer walk in to order take away, was not served for close to five minutes… On the other hand I saw a kitchen staff sitting out the back playing on their phone for most of the entire time I was there.
Hurdle 3 - Not authentic.
We ordered the Bún bò Huế, our friend noted there was a lot of five spice powder in the broth compared to many others they’ve tried in Richmond, Springvale and Footscray. We also ordered the poor excuse of a crispy pork Bahn mi, extreme complete lack of filling (see photos) the Banh Mi at roll’d is probably better, which came out after the saddest Bun Cha ever despite being the least complex dish out of what we ordered. In the Bun Cha, the grilled pork and meatballs came out in some fish sauce soup slurry (refer to pictures). The pork balls tasted like Chinese liver sausage was added to them too. Portions were also extremely small I finished my bun Cha in 5 mouthfuls, not enough to call lunch.
Hurdle 4 - Not child friendly.
Lack of space to park any prams or strollers in this restaurant, and ONLY ONE HIGHCHAIR, in the entire restaurant. There were 2 other families with toddlers including ours and one child had the only high chair…
Hurdle 5 - Payment/End of meal experience.
According to reviews this place has been opened for a number of weeks and when we asked for a tax invoice at payment they couldn’t produce one. Also, the table of six that finished before us still had dirty dishes on the table even though the had left 10 minutes before us. I noted my above feedback regarding my meal and told them they needed to pick up their game to the cashier and all I got was a “sorry” and they still had the gall to take our money. The staff need customer service training.
As someone who frequents these local shops, I’m truly disappointed and would not recommend anyone wasting their good money here.
List 11 Budget-Friendly Restaurants Near You in Balwyn North, VIC (part 2)
