Oriental Spoon

We have tried several Korean restaurants in Melbourne over the years but have not written a review on all of them. This is our latest review of one of our favourites. Oriental Spoon is a casual restaurant offering a large variety of dishes that are perfect for sharing. Some say it is pricey compared to the many choices in the city but if you ask us, as with most cases, you pay for what you get. This time we had:

Chicken fillets in chilli sauce and mozzarella cheese - Don't let the three chilli symbols put you off from ordering this. You can ask for a milder version. It is cheesy and slightly spicy. Quite a large portion of moist, tender chicken, it is seriously addictive and delicious.

Sizzling Korean beef ribs - You can't go wrong when ordering beef at a Korean restaurant. It is tender, smells incredible and sizzling away when it arrives at the table. The ribs are tasty and go perfectly well with the sides that accompany your meal.

Service: :star :star :star :star :star
Quality of food: :star :star :star :star ½
Value for money: :star :star :star :star  ½

Type of venue: Korean

Worth a return visit? Yes.

Address: 254 La Trobe Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

Patbingsoo

What a delightful find in South Melbourne. This place certainly holds its own when compared to the many good Korean restaurants in Melbourne. This was our first visit and we cannot wait to go back. We had:

Galbi beef rib bibimbap - marinated beef short rib, sautéed zucchini, kimchi, kale, bean shoots, toasted seaweed on Korean rice. It was a modern looking bibimbap, everything worked well together and the short rib was tender and delicious.

Korean fried chicken - chicken pieces coated and crisped with spicy sauce and daikon kimchi. Mixture of chicken ribs and wingettes. Very well cooked but wish there was more sauce and the batter was a little heavy. Still, a good sharing dish.

Green tea bingsoo- soft rice cake on sweet red bean with green tea snowflake. The snow ice machine is excellent as the texture throughout the bingsoo was good. Light green tea flavour mixed with the homemade red bean lifted this humble dessert.

Raspberry kombucha - a raw fermented chilled tea, full of natural probiotics and immune boosting benefits. Interesting drink, slightly tangy not unlike an apple vinegar drink with a slight effervescence.

Service: :star :star :star :star :star:

Quality of food: :star :star :star :star ½
Value for money: :star :star :star :star 

Type of venue: Modern Korean

Worth a return visit? Yes. 

Address: 128 York Street, South Melbourne VIC 3205

White Tomato

We don't like giving bad reviews. In fact,  we try not to. Tonight we were extremely disappointed with White Tomato and we are afraid this will be a bad one.

We ordered two dishes to share but the rice was cold by the time our first dish came.

Kimchi cheese pancake - having previously ordered it, we were very excited to have what should have been a hot and crispy pancake filled with kimchi and hot melted cheese. To our disappointment,  it was an off tasting, mostly soggy kimchi-and-lacking-in-cheese pancake.

Galbijjim - it never arrived coz we got the bill after waiting almost an hour for it!

Service: :star :star
Quality of food: :star
Value for money: :star :star

Type of venue: Korean

Worth a return visit? No.

Address: 160/162 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000