Kitchen Workshop

Location: Ground Floor, Clarendon Street Entrance, Crown
Link: http://www.crowncasino.com.au/kitchen-workshop
Cuisine: International

I hate buffets. But due to several factors including undue influence, I went to Kitchen Workshop last night. There was a pretty decent selection of mains and entrees like roast, lots of random deep fried things, beef bourginon, calamari, fish, roasts, antipastos, salads, pasta, biriyani rice, an interactive teppanyaki station (where you get to choose what you want in your stir-fry). I was waiting in line at the teppanyaki station and saw them pour a ridiculous amount of oil on and chickened out, quickly leaving my position. My friends tried it though and they said there were nice flavours but nothing to shout about. There was also a generous selection of desserts (that included a chocolate fountain).

The mango pudding in particular was a winner. Simple and pleasant.

Overall Impression: 5/10
Delivers everything it promises but goes no further. Great value for money. An all you can eat dinner that cost us 23.50AUD per head. Relaxed ambience. Helpful staff.

Sichuan Restaurant: Hotpot

Location: 65-67 Carrington Road, Box Hill
Cuisine: Chinese, Hotpot

There are quite a few hotpot places in Box Hill, Sichuan Restaurant is one I frequent the least, but ventured there for all-you-can-eat hotpot for a birthday.

For $25, you have pretty much unlimited amounts of food - you just keep ordering and the waiters will bring in the dishes (raw of course). There are also a couple of cooked dishes that count as part of it, including some type of jelly noodle, wontons and other somewhat strange dishes.

We ordered a double flavoured pot for nine of us (one side normal broth, one side loaded with fat red chillies). Service was a little below par when compared with other similar places but we pretty much got what we asked for so there were no dramas there.

They did try to charge us for an extra bottle of beer when we had kept tabs on how many had been ordered. After some negotiation they were more than happy to take the amount off the bill. It was disappointing that tea, a staple at most Chinese restaurants, cost $1.50 per person.

I think I have a preference for Beijing Hotpot and Dumpling Cafe or Little Lamb when it comes to hotpot. I should probably go back to them at some point and get some photos!

Overall Impression: 7.5/10

Oriental Spoon: Korean BBQ

Location: 254 Latrobe Street
Cuisine: Korean, BBQ
Previous Review: Oriental Spoon

Complimentary kimchi and side dishes

The BBQ

The only requirements for the BBQ are that you have to choose a minimum of two dishes - I suspect that they don't really want to have to clean the BBQ plate for just one dish!! We chose the marinated beef (bulgogi) and marinated prime beef ribs. The ribs came with a king prawn, mushrooms, sliced sweet potato (the white oval shaped thing in the corner) and onions (the round white thing in front of the mushrooms). Beef was marinated and very juicy - just like I had expected!! The sweet potato on the other hand, could have been cooked a little longer as they were still rather crunchy when the waitress turned off the BBQ.

Which takes me to my next point. The service. Now the past few times I've been to Oriental Spoon, the service has been excellent. Today I was a little disappointed by the fact that the waitress didn't alert us to the fact that the cooking was done, and instead waited to come back and tell us that it was burning. Other than that, it was all good!!

Pricing was reasonable. Slightly cheaper than I was expecting (especially after my experience at Hwaro) but there was definitely plenty of food!

Overall Rating: 9/10

Hwaro BBQ

Location: 562 Little Bourke Street [near King Street]
Cuisine: Korean, BBQ

With a number of recommendations from friends, I took some work friends down to Hwaro for their first Korean BBQ experience. The food was unbelievably amazing!! Now I've had Korean BBQ before, but this time just beats the rest! The meats were well-marinated and full of flavour, and were barbecued until they were soft and tender, none of that charred burnt blocks of meat! There was a wide range of complimentary side dishes too - kimchi, beanshoots, soybeans and the like. We chose a dish each for the BBQ, and also a seafood pancake. Amusingly, we ended up selecting two of nearly everything - 2 x bul-go-gi, 2 x chicken thigh fillet, 2 x calamari and 1 x marinated rib-eye fillet.

[complimentary sides]

[seafood pancake]

[the BBQ itself]

The place was very nicely ventilated - each BBQ had its own mini air-vent that could be lowered or raised for convenience. Despite the ventilation, the smell of Korean BBQ still lingered on our clothes after we left. There is even a outdoor 'balcony-like' section with tables. Would be a nice place to sit in the summer, but for winter, we were glad to have an indoor table!

The service, on the other hand, was rather abrupt and at times bordered on rude. One waiter told one of us that we had to be out by 8pm because they had another booking for then. Now, why wasn't I informed of this when I called first to make the booking, or at either of the two times I called to confirm numbers. As we approached 8pm, they started loitering around the table collecting finished plates and bowls and brought us the bill without us having asked for it.

The next complainable thing was the way they miscommunicated information. When we made our orders, I asked the waitress whether rice would be charged per head or per bowl. She said per head, which we took to mean unlimited rice per person as is usually the case at many other Asian restaurants. The problem was when we got the bill, they had charged us for 15 bowls of rice and not for 9 people. The waiter then tried to back it up by showing us the menu - which merely stated "steamed rice $2" without any indication of whether it would be charged per head or per bowl. After stressing this, they were at least willing to rectify the bill and therefore redeemed themselves.

I think that irrespective of the billing issue, the food was so awesome that I will definitely be back for more!!

Overall Rating: 9/10

Shabu Shabu

Location: 380 Lonsdale Street
Link: www.shabushabu.com.au
Cuisine: Japanese, Hotpot

Another all-you-can-eat for $25 place! This time, it's Japanese hotpot. For those who don't know, hotpot involves starting with a pot of boiling stock with a choice of soup bases (here it is chicken or miso) and a choice of dipping sauces (soy, sesame or suki). The food comes around on a conveyor belt, you take what you want off the conveyor belt and add it to your pot.

[chicken broth soup base]

[sesame dipping sauce]

As the servings on the belt are quite small (to prevent wastage), a waiter literally stands at the end of the belt and reloads it continuously. The selection is quite extensive ranging from meats (chicken, beef, lamb and pork), through to seafood (prawns, scallops, mussels, octopus, calamari and fish), and plenty of tofu, fish balls and vegies.

[the conveyor belt of food - hint: if you see prawns or scallops, take them immediately, or you will never get any!!!]

The only negative point was that because we hadn't booked, we were told that we had a 1.5 hour time limit. That did not impress us at all, as we had wanted to make the most of our $25! However, that time limit drove us to consuming excessive amounts of mostly seafood in an attempt to break even with our expenditure! I have a feeling we succeeded!

[just a fraction of the plates we accumulated over the 1.5 hours]

But for the time limitation, the service was quite fast. Empty plates were cleared away quite often, although I would have liked a photo of all the empty plates we had!

Overall rating: 9.5/10

Oriental Spoon

Location: 254 Latrobe Street

Cuisine: Korean
Company: various

I've been to this place multiple times, each time is a slightly different experience. I remember Mel took us to this restaurant the first time and we ordered a casserole [Korean casseroles are very soupy, but full of flavour] and a few other dishes between four people. Have been back a couple of other times for lunch of simple rice dishes, but it was the last that was the most memorable.

I met Jie after work one Saturday night and headed to Oriental Spoon for dinner. We ordered a beef cassarole and a pancake to share. We underestimated the size of the pancake and ordered a main size, rather than an entree sized, and had half of it leftover. The pancake itself was quite nice, and full of seafood, but could have had a stronger flavour, or a sauce that would cling to the pancake better. The casserole on the other hand, was bursting with flavour, especially by the end. It worked pretty much like hotpot, except that the broth itself was highly flavoured, before the waitress added the raw ingredients to a small camping stove at our table. The waitress would return at intervals to mix the soup and contents up a bit more, and we ate the beef and vegies with rice.

Beef casserole

Like most Korean restaurants, the meal also came with a number of complimentary sides, which were mostly quite tasty.

Pricewise, the meal cost us about $30 each, including drinks. A fairly decent price given we walked out of there overly full! We now know that one entree sized will be sufficient for two people!

Izakaya Chuji

Location: 165 Lonsdale Street
Link: www.izakayachuji.com
Cuisine: Japanese, Tapas, BBQ
Company: Jie, Jenn, Mel, Emma, Helen

~Food~
The food was rather average. I suspect BBQ would have been nicer, but given it was a very hot day, we went a la carte with a stack of small tapas-like dishes. A few dishes stood out, including the asari butter (clam in butter soup) and the crab croquettes. Amusingly, the description for sukiyaki was 'a very popular dish served in pot with special sauce', although it didn't quite live up to expectations. It merely tasted like sukiyaki from any other Jap restaurant.

~Atmosphere and Service~
When we arrived at about 6pm, it was already starting to look busy. Downstairs was more crowded and had a market-like atmosphere. Upstairs was a little quieter and more restaurant like. Lighting was slightly dimmed and the place had character.

Unfortunately for the place, the service was shocking. The waiters and waitresses could barely understand English, which made communication a bit of a problem. Our first issue arose when we decided it was too hot for BBQ and opted to order from the main menu. We asked one waitress whether it was possible to order a la carte instead of BBQ, and asked for the main menu. Given that she left and returned with the menus, we assumed it would be okay. Not quite so. Another waitress later came up and told us off for not ordering BBQ when we had booked for BBQ. That would have been fair enough if they had told us when we asked. Instead they then complained about us taking up a BBQ table when they had to turn away people who wanted BBQ - despite there still being a few empty BBQ tables around us...

~Price~
The prices seemed quite cheap when we first looked at the menu, but the dishes were all rather small and after paying $20 each, we left rather unsatisfied.

~Overall Impression~
Would perhaps return to try out the Jap BBQ, but other than that, not particularly keen to return.

Little Lamb

Location: Whitehorse Road, Box Hill
Cuisine: Chinese
Company: family

~Food~
Little Lamb operates like any other typical hotpot (or as some like to call, steamboat) restaurant. You select a soup base (normal, spicy, herbal) and then select a range of raw meats, vegies and other typical hotpot additions such as glass noodles, tofu and fish balls. Then you get to cook it all yourself, to your own liking, whenever you want. We opted for the normal soup base as the spicy is generally extremely spicy and I'm not a fan of herbal soups. Even still, the normal soup base was a very nicely flavoured stock base with some goji berries and other spices and herbs floating around (although not as much as in the herbal one).

In addition, Llittle Lamb had a Mongolian roast lamb rack on the menu, so we thought we would give that a try.... and I absolutely loved it!!! It was very nicely roasted (although somewhat oily), and instead of being heavily coated in spices, was only lightly marinated, then served with small dishes of spices.

~Atmosphere and Service~
The place is quite a small restaurant, and it was crowded and busy. From the outside, you can see the steamed up windows and as soon as you step in, you can smell the aromas of the roast lamb (they do skewers as well) and the hotpot. The service was decent too, especially for a small Asian restaurant such as this was. The waiters were really attentive and efficient, and responsed quite promptly to any requests we had.

~Price~
$23 per person all-you-can eat, or you can order dishes separately to control spending.

~Overall Impression: 9/10~
Great place and food for a cold winter's night. Probably will return again the next time the weather goes cold again.

Seoul House

Location: 234 Russell Street, near corner of Lonsdale
Cuisine: Korean, BBQ
Company: Dan

Seoul House is a hidden on the second floor near the corner of Russell and Lonsdale Streets. Once you make it up the narrow staircase, you will notice that the place is rather spacious, essentially the size of two rooms. seating is comfortable and spaciousThe tables have built in BBQ hot plates.

~Food~
The menu wasn't too bad. Not extensive, but not so limited that we didn't find anything worth ordering either. The place specialises in Korean BBQ so we ordered a beef bulgogi BBQ along with stir-fried seafood, rice and Korean pancake [which was supposed to be an entree but arrived last of all the dishes!]. As with most Korean places, we also got complimentary side dishes, and there were a lot of them too! The beef was fantastic - well-marinated, tender and had that nice smokey flavour from the BBQ. The pancake was really interesting, reminded me of the fried oyster pancakes from Taiwanese night markets, but was stuffed with a variety of seafood and crispy. A few of the side dishes were quite good, whilst others tasted solely of chilli. The stir-fry was a little ordinary and could have done with more flavour.

[The multitudes of complimentary side dishes]

[Korean pancake stuffed with small bites of seafood]

[Beef bulgogi BBQ]

[Stir-fried seafood with vegetables]

~Atmosphere and Service~
The service was pleasant, fast and non-intrusive. The waitresses were quick to respond to our requests and were very knowledgeable about the menu and the servings. We ordered the pancake on their recommendation and were very pleased with it, although as an entree, it should have come out first but instead came out last.

~Price~
In comparison with other Korean restaurants, the prices were quite reasonable. Dishes were between $15 to $20. A three person BBQ pack was around $50. Drinks as usual are a little more pricey.

~Overall Impression: 8/10~
Was quite pleased with the food and service provided. Will be returning for the BBQ.

Kra Ta Ron

Location: On Lonsdale, Near Swanston
Genre: Thai
Company: Jenster

Decor & Atmosphere: Very typically Thai. Lots of Batik and scary masks and such. Started off a bit rocky with being seated in front of the door but progressed nicely. The owner/manager lady was so lovely. If i were her, I'd get a pissed off coz we were a bit demanding.

The Food: 8/10
We had Thai barbeque which is like hot pot but you can also grill your food. Heaps of fun. We overcooked our food a bit but, hey, you can't be too careful! The meats and squid were really yummy and the soup was delicious by the end. But the alloted portions for two were not quite enough (although Jen and I do eat a lot). We had to order a few additional plates (the additional plates were worth the money. The servings were quite big. Don't get the baby octopus. It wasnt as much fun as it looked and didn't taste so great either. I'd recommend get the beef and pork but not the chicken (it goes flakey) and get extra stock (i think it's free) coz the soup is delicious! And get lots of egg noodle/ rice noodle to soak up the stock. YUM.
The special Thai beverages weren't all that special though. Next time I'll stick to water.

Menu

The Price: Reasonable
At just on $60 for food & drink. So about $30/ person and you'll walk away VERY full.

Fructose friendliness: First let me say, the manager/owner was brilliant. She knew what fructose WAS and was very understanding. She explained there was onion in the soup stock but that they could make it for us without onion. I was like :O wow. She also said they could make the stirfries and things without onion also. Very impressed. The placed seemed clean too and all the food prep seemed exceptional. Of course, coconut curries cannot be changed so some of the menu is still off limits but a definite possiblity for the future.

Overall Impressions: 8/10
Definitely will go there again. Will recommend to others. Good food, lovely staff and not overpriced for dinner (even if we did cook it for ourselves but that's part of the fun)

JeanieEdit
Went back here about a week ago. Now hotpot is buffet only. You have to pay $25 and you get all you can eat of the ingredients provided. I dunno if it's as good value coz my parents and i decided to eat normal dishes.