Mr. Nick's Kitchen & Coffee Bar — Restaurant in Adelaide

We were excited to hear of the new Yumcha menu being released in Nicks Kitchen in Pasadena. Our excitement landed us with an easy reservation made through their online booking system. This review is based on only the yumcha menu and our experience with the ordering.

Food: We ordered 98% of the yumcha dishes. ordering multiple servings of: Taro Buns, vegetable dumplings, BBQ pork buns, prawn dumplings, pork ribs, deep fried wontons, soft shell crab, steamed prawn shumai and hot tea.

Overall, the dishes tasted bland and was not pleasant to eat. Priced at the higher end of most yumcha places you would expect that the dishes served are tasty and fresh. We honestly wouldn’t be surprised if these dishes were pulled from the frozen food section of Pasadenas Foodland. The vegetarian dumplings were soggy and tasted like oil, with the prawn selections being no better.

If you’re desperate to try this place we recommend asking the staff for some soy sauce then drowning each of the items in it to give it some flavour. The only highlight of our experience was the soft shell crab and fried rice, which wasn’t anything special but is much better in comparison to the other dishes we had.

We would not recommend this place to anyone who is a frequent yumcha diner. This yumcha menu is pretty disappointing given the high reputation of this business and the high prices of each of their yumcha dishes.

Service: We waited 10 minutes to be shown our table, which some don’t consider as bad. However, if you are a diner and can see multiple serving staff walking around the half empty establishment multiple times staring at you and the other guests waiting in line, you probably can’t help but to raise your eyebrows and stare at your watch wondering what they’re doing.

Price: It is overpriced and has the same bland consistency as hospital food. You are better off going to an actual yumcha place as this is mediocre at best. Overall, Nick’s yumcha is pretty disappointing given their high reputation in serving some pretty nice dishes. We recommend they rethink their yumcha approach as it is not a true reflection of their capabilities in the other...

What has happened at Mr Nick’s recently? For such a long time, my partner and I ate there on a regular basis, using it as a chance to have some delicious and well-priced meals and enjoy restaurant quality service. After our first experience, we recommended Mr Nicks to many of our friends and family as a great dinner experience. The food has always been consistently good and we have enjoyed the various menus and food experiences that have been offered. Sadly, though we have found our last few visits disappointing. Firstly, of the last 3 visits, twice we arrived at 6:30 to find the place closed even though on Google it is marked (the restaurant) as open until until 8pm. Oh well, Foodland’s loss is Balthazar’s gain. Finally I asked some supermarket staff about this to find out that on Mondays and Tuesdays the restaurant now closes at 5. They admitted this hasn’t been changed online and apologised. Then we came again on Thursday knowing it was seafood night but looking forward to it. Upon arrival, both the seafood and special menus were put on our table. We were both pleasantly surprised to see that on the special’s menu, of the 4 dishes, 2 were non-seafood, pork ribs and T-bone steak, both at reasonable price. Unfortunately, when we ordered these we were told that of the special’s menu, only the entree (Kimchee dumplings) and soup (potato and leek) were available. Oh well. While we understand that items on a menu are sometimes not available, why put a small brown-paper special’s menu on the table with only half of items on offer?These specials could be offered verbally, although to be honest the staff did not appear to be as interested in engaging with customers as they once were. To finish up, while I still feel the food that we had was consistently good for the price, the service has dropped dramatically. I don’t blame the waiting staff as to be honest, I sympathise with them if they are constantly having to apologise for misinformation. This is a problem at a management and organisational level, and this makes us reluctant to recommend Mr Nicks...

WHAT HAPPENED? We had eaten many times at Mr Nicks in the past, the service was professional, the meal was always fantastic. The concept of an exceptional restaurant in a supermarket was literally unheard-of in suburban Adelaide. We had enjoyed the seafood tower in the past. We had a friend visiting from the country so we came along early to book and asked if the seafood tower could be done for 3 persons and were assured that the kitchen could accommodate. When we came in for our meal, the staff were not watching for prospective diners, when we did find the waitress she seemed puzzled to find the table set for 3 persons but there it was in front of her. The waitress gave us the menu and a well worn specials menu, we had to ask for a wine list. We asked about the seafood tower for 3 persons and told it was a set menu and could not be done bit of a contradiction to the earlier advice. So back to the huddle..... decided we would go for the seafood tower and CRUMBED garfish. This time had to call a waiter over to order, he plainly did not understand "CRUMBED" which he could not pronounce it and because the fish came battered. That was sent back while two of us shared a disappointing seafood tower. The oysters were good, the prawns were broken seconds, calamari was ok as was the garfish on the tower. All in all the $60 seafood tower and the late arrival CRUMBED garfish with no salad was a disappointment. Would have got better service and seafood at Barnacle Bills at half the price. If you have read this far you will understand how bitterly disappointed I am. Mr Nick time to shake...