Merlot Chinese Restaurant - Food VIC

1 /5 Sam Brereton: You usually can’t stuff up fried rice and dumplings but after eating fried rice that had the weirdest smell/taste and pork dumplings that were tasteless, I don’t think I’ll be coming back. It’s a shame because Loi Eng had the best food before its closure.

1 /5 Glen Sheppard: agree with the other posters. Loi Eng was the best. spring roll was the best going around as were the dim sims, i loved the fried rice and Singapore noodles as well. I got all of them today (well not the singapore noodles, they couldnt do that, not sure why, did not understand what she was trying to tell me) and it was garbage. I do not think that the oil has been changed in forever, the spring roll was soggy, like it was cooked in stale oil but pre cooked before hand and as for the fried rice, i do not mean to be rude but I am married to an Asian woman. I did not think Asian people could cook such crap fried rice. Avoid this place, it has been run into the ground. It is utter garbage now.

1 /5 Rhonda Brown: Bought two large spring rolls, that cost me $20 half the size they were when it was Loi eng. The outside of them tasted burnt like they needed to clean the oil and it bent , was like trying to eat a sponge . Definitely not worth the money ate the inside threw the rest away.

3 /5 UniversallyStupid: (ATTENTION ALL.) Ive been going to Loi eng basically all my life and Im in my 30s, other family members even longer. The food over all was great, specially when you could eat in. Like most Would agree the best lunch item ( though its also counted as a dinner item.) Was the dimsims and big spring roll. The lovely owners from what I remember live no where near ftg travelling up to an hour to work and give us those dishes. Sadly near the time of them selling the prices jumped up littpe by little due to cost of living and the staff got smaller. Thankfully the new owner as kept the same recipe for both but has sadly gone in the wrong direction with them. 1st with the dims sims, there size has gotten smaller yet the price has jumped up to $3 each( which is still cheaper the melbourne dimsims sold at servos or charcoal chickens.). The flavour isnt the original but its close atleast. 2nd the Spring roll... Ive gotten the "new" version 3 times now, the 1st time I was sceptical due to the half the size vanishing but still had length, the inside basically tasted the same which I was happy about but the oil... you can tell theyve changed oil to either something different or it needs a clean. The next 2 times I picked it up and it just bends, and the taste of the outside was rubbery and the oil taste was not pleasant. Can definitely say going from the original size at $7 to the same length half the size bad oil version at $10 its not very appealing. Dont get me wrong I wish the new owner best of luck going forward, but they needs more staff working, and needs to get the dinning area up and running once the staff and cooking get under control. Sadly everytime Ive been in there theres only 1 person running around, and no one else though sometimes youll see 2 people. My Advice to the owner is what I said above, get more staff, fix food and communication, and hopefully open up dinning area. If you keep at the currant pace I sadly dont see the store lasting.