Came here for my friend's 30th birthday with a group of about 15 people, most of us with some sort…read moreof Russian background, but for some this was their first time enjoying the Russian Restaurant Experience. The event was on a Saturday, and when we arrived a little before 8pm, the lights were still on and the music hadn't started yet but there were already starters on the table, including many traditional favourites like pickled herring, potato salad, and red caviar, to name just a few, served family style. The hot cheese blini (crepes) were the best by far and disappeared all too quickly. Although there was a full bar, jugs of soft drinks were included in the banquet price and we brought our own liquor, wine, champagne, and so forth. It wasn't too long before the live entertainment started, and I'll be the first to admit that when our balding, Russian DJ and three girls (one of them exceptionally scantily clad) came on stage and opened with a round of congratulations to the guests of honour, I was skeptical. After that, and for the rest of the evening, most of us were mesmerised by the DJ's impressive saxophone and keyboard skills and the girls' ridiculously diverse range: Throughout the night, they pulled off every kind of song from Money, Money, Money to Poker Face with a good dose of Russian music in between. The crowd was wild the whole night, with little kids right up to elderly folk dancing to anything our entertainers wanted to play. My favourite for the night was a medley that included the obligatory Boney M's Rasputin song (which includes getoutofmybrain lyrics like "Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine). Oh, and one of the singers was Peta who was a contestant on The Voice, so there's that. The food just kept coming all night, as did the mixers, so at no point was I sober or hungry. As the night wound down, the birthday cake was brought over with vocal accompaniment, then brought back sliced with coffee and tea. Things started to wind down at around 1am, although I was having so much fun I like to think I might have stayed till the sun came up. There were enough cabs cruising the area that we didn't have to wait very long for one to get us home safely. If I had to complain about one thing, it would be how warm it gets inside after a few vodka shots and rocking out on a crowded dance floor, but then again it's easy enough to pop out for some fresh air and come back in. The cost was only $65pp for all the food, mixers, and entertainment, and worth at least that. This turned out to be one of the best nights out I've had in a long time and I can't wait to have an excuse to come back.

My wife and I used to be regulars at this restaurant, typically spending around $140 for two…read morepeople. We would share a bottle of wine and were fine with the corkage fee. However, during our last visit, we brought with us a bottle of cognac and had one shot each. The restaurant charged a $25 corkage fee for the cognac, which we felt was excessive. Unfortunately, this will be our last visit. Mark and Victoria

Love this place AND it's so close to home. My mum gets…read morefussier and fussier with food as she gets older. Nothing tastes like it used to and so taking her out to a restaurant is tough because most of the time she's not going to be happy. Potsticker has been a winner year after year when I come to visit my mom. Every dish we order she still not only likes but really enjoys. The crab claws are delicious filled with real crab, lots of it, with a tasty sauce. The Fried Tofu is perfect in both seasoning and texture. Crispy on the outside and wonderfully soft and creamy on the inside. Their soups are excellent and my shredded beef was really delicious. I highly recommend this place as an always good staple. It is also pretty to sit in and reasonably priced.

The food here is amazing. Have been here a couple of times and have loved every bite. We stopped…read morefor lunch and had the 5 selection deal for $32 per person. You get to choose 5 plates from the menu and they come out tapas style so a share plate. There are so many great choices on the menu to choose from. But sharing the 5 plates is enough for you to feel satisfied with out being overly full. Every plate was a delight and the accompanying salads were light and refreshing. I especially lives the tempura eggplant dish with the green mango salad with chilli it was delicious. The crying Tiger was also amazing with the wagyu and the spicy citrus dipping sauce. It's to die for as is the sticky pork belly The staff were great they were attentive and happy to explain any part of the menu we were unsure about. Also very friendly and made sure we were happy with everything. I will be back here for sure pity it's so far away for us but it's a good place to look forward to coming back for a great feed.

This place is pretty new, well as I write this anyhow. It's…read moreopening around was April 13/14 sometime. Its a clean nice modern space, and certainly serves as a credible drinking venue in the immediate area, where you're not provided with much other choice. There's a lone Spanish tap beer in the middle of the counter bar that occupies the front entrance. Its a small seater place, with a mezzanine level right at the back. Beer, wine, Pintoxs is the trading catch cry, with tapas like little snacks on little bread portions. I haven't tried the wine yet, but I'm assuming it will be a great list. Within extremely easy walking distance from home, I'm hoping on the nights I'm not working that this just may become my local drinking spot. More places like these are needed in the neighborhood, to lift the suburb out if its dreary, dour, dull existence. This is the type of place you would expect to find in small street or lane way of the city.

Sign up for membership and get half priced pintxos!…read more Newly opened in St Kilda near the heart of Acland st, Lona provides spacious indoor and outdoor seating for one to enjoy pinxtos (small snack) from the food bar, a la carte menu and cooling drinks. Keep the toothpicks in the holder and bring it up to the bar for payment at the very end. The pinxtos were smaller than I would have liked and some lacked flavour however I tried about 10 different finger food snacks and I enjoyed the smoked salmon and calamari the most. We had a dessert special that was on the board called pina cotta and that was the highlight of the visit with toasted coconut and sweet pineapple cubes.

Haven't been to one of these outlets in ages! I went in with very minimal expectations as previous…read moretimes in one of these chains (including Kobe jones) was $$$ and shit! Nvrtheless I found myself going with the flow and reserving my judgement after the outcome. We ordered the rib eye surf turf and the scotch. Rib eye came out first and just watching how effortless the knife cut through it I knew I was in for a treat. It was like carving through butter! Didn't need to cut more like a glide w/ the knife across the steak! No excessive juices / blood flowing through to plate. All of which was held within the meat itself! Medium rare was done to perfection!! FINALLY a place that does med rare and burnt / chargrilled burnt bits of edges! No sauce or anything else needed! First piece went in my mouth and before I knew it melted and gone! It was amazing! The scotch was a backup in case rib eye was shit and still hungry! I found myself in trouble! The scotch 450g was excellent!! And I was getting full! Nice problem to have :) the scotch was done equally to perfection with burnt bits and no thawed out freezer after taste!! It was soooo good! I finished it with no tired jaw or meat fibre left on the hotplate. Overall... I think it is the chef / cook that is at this outlet that is gd. I've been to the others and ... meeh.... Will definitely return! thank you for restoring my faith in Melb steak! I've been let down by the Steak Ministry, Meat n Wine and some other so called steak places which charge an arm n a leg for under par steak! I've avoided steak in Melbourne since these sh$tty experiences. am yet to try San Telmo and Meatmother. Oh... no 5 star as I have not encountered anything like the steak I had at Wolfgang's in New York! OMG!! Hunger pains again! haha

This is a restaurant, in the new Stockland complex in East Hawthorn…read more When we arrived there was a subdued crowd eating in a nicely decorated restaurant. I'm guessing that the market here is more aimed at the dinner crowd. And as we only had a beer, I can't really comment on the food. The service was good though.

I've been here twice so far. Once to grab a late lunch. I ordered the Buddha bowl, which was a…read moresimple bowl of greens and mashed sweet potato and avocado with some homemade tortilla chips. My sister ordered the zucchini fritters, which came with two poached eggs. They were really good, especially with their a thousand island sauce. The second time I came here was to grab a sandwich to go. I love their sourdough bread, and the sandwich had the multigrain bread. It was tomato based, so no cheese, and had grilled eggplant and mushrooms and spinach. It was very tasty, and even more so if you get it lightly toasted.

This is a hidden gem. The best bistro/cafe of its type in the southern suburbs on our experience…read moretoday. It's better here than at more fancied places including the famed Leftfield. We loved the space. It's bright and airy with plenty of room to spread out. A small thing, but I loved that there is seating with decent cushions instead of hard, flat immovable surfaces. Also, whoever chose the music playlist really knows their stuff. The music playing throughout was fabulous. We were advised that there is a new menu offered here now and that the chef has over 15 years experience overall and has been in Australia 6 years. The menu looked contemporary and very interesting: we quickly selected the corn fritters and the Tunisian baked eggs. We were knocked out by the sheer quality of both dishes. It's beautiful food. The corn fritters were with smoked salmon and poached eggs. They're lovely fluffy fritters with great flavour including a fascinating hint of spice. Ditto the gorgeous baked eggs. These are the best I've ever had. The previous best were those at Jerry Joy in Thornbury but these topped those to my astonishment. They are rich and substantive again with delicate hints of spice. And, whoever decided to add the slice of lemon is a visionary too. The acidity is just beautiful with the dish. We finished with coffee and red velvet cake. Both were wonderful again. The coffees were expertly made, a real Melbourne coffee. The cake was excellent too. Lovely, tasty and moist. The perfect finish. This was an unexpectedly great meal. We loved the place, the food and the service. The world's most stunning woman and I commented to each other that this was a pretty much the near perfect brunch. Put Servery and Spoon in the inner suburbs and they'd be fighting off customers and have lines around the block. It was that good. Finally, I'm conscious that I'm giving another 5. This is another case of not having the capacity to give a half mark. A 4.5 would have been optimal, but a 4 far too low. In those circumstances, there's no option but to choose the higher mark. (Our sincere thanks to Nitin and Ritika for the invitation to visit here. Put simply, we loved it. We wish them and their venture the good fortune that it and they deserve.)

Not sure why this ones not on the grid because it's damn good…read more Great authentic flavoured chicken pho - matched by an equally well reasonable price. Hospitality is straight out of HCMC :)

Excellent food. Extremely clean. Very pleasant experience. Used to trek across town for good pho…read morebut not anymore. We will be returning

This place was awesome. It just had that charm that I really like about inner-city cafes. I noticed…read moreit as I was walking past, and honestly it was the name that immediately caught my attention. As such I made the decision to step in for a coffee, and sure enough that turned out to be the correct decision to make. Yeah, the coffee was great, but that goes without saying, and the atmosphere was nothing short of amazing. I'm definitely going to have to come back here - this place is awesome.

Popular with the weekend family brunchers, this place is deceptively big. Not much of a wait if…read moreyou do have to wait for a table and quite frankly they are pumping out some delicious coffee. They would totally get 5 stars if they had more feta on the avocado with feta smash. Just not enough.

Healthy food that also tastes great and they also serve great coffee. Staff is also nutritionally…read moreeducated and know all about better choices for different eating plans. I had not had desserts for months but they have sugar free and gluten free treats which actually taste good. I have definitely made this my preferred meeting place while in Melbourne.

My friend and I had a coffee and one toast / avocado. I was significantly overcharged and when I…read moregently questioned this the owner went ballistic, very intimidating and aggressive. Zip customer service skills. All this in front of his staff who he terrorizes! DONT GO THERE. Also see reviews on Google and Zomato and Trip Avisor. He is a nutter.

I came here with friends while visiting Melbourne from New York, and I was not disappointed…read more I couldn't wait for everyone to arrive before I ordered my Full Wine Flight, as I was getting to the point of "hanger," and everything was starting to make me consider chewing my own arm. It was a generous helping of about 2.5 glasses worth, which they did tell us ahead of time, but again, as I was hangry, I had selective hearing at the time. Point being, make sure you have food in your belly and really love a lot of cheese or you may want to share the Full Wine Flight. While I was partial to certain cheeses and wines, I did enjoy them all and felt they were each paired perfectly to the accompanying wines. Personally, I can't just eat cheese with my wine, so we added a few meats, the onion jam, more bread and the fried Camembert as well. One of our friends is a vegan, and she was pleasantly surprised and thrilled that they catered to her dietary needs with a few items as well, so this is good to note for any vegans out there! Overall, it was a very delicious and lovely experience, and I will certainly go back the next time I am back in the area visiting. I think I can speak for the 3 others who joined as well, as they all signed up for their special loyalty program that allows you 10% off your first visit after you sign up.

Nice cheeseboard with wine pairing. Not sure it deserves an entire chain of restaurants for the…read moreconcept. I've had similar boards as one of a number of appetizer or dessert offerings at other restaurants. The cheeses were quite good and the wines and champagnes were fine. The pours felt stingy since we ordered the "large" pours. Points off for not having some labeling system to know which wines and cheeses you are eating.