Asian Star House — Restaurant in Melbourne

A new Cantonese restaurant on High St in Windsor. The restaurant is modern, super spacious and stunning - definitely a stand out to your usual casual Canto restaurant!

Starters: 🥬 - Sang Choi Bao [$6.80] - a classic, huge snack to start! 🥢 - Deep fried scallops 4pc [$16.80] - massive juicy scallops fried perfectly 🦑 - Salt & pepper squid [$15.80] - another classic, and on point! 🐠 - Seafood parcel [$15.80] - a huge dumpling with prawn, chicken and black fungus filling wrapped in an egg wrap, and topped with flying fish roe - really unique, and all very familiar flavours 🐥 - Chef's quail [$14.80] - I love quail, and this was seasoned perfectly. The quail didn't have much meat on it though

Mains: 🐷 - Sweet & sour pork [$26.80] - yum yum yum! Crispy batter and juicy pork ribs 🍤 - Sizzling prawn w/ ginger and scallion [$36.80] - nostalgic! Fresh ingredients and good serving size! Exactly what would expect at any Chinese restaurant 🍚 - Black truffle wagyu fried rice [$38.80] - generous serving! It was tasty with good wok hei. However, for the price, the truffle and wagyu additions were a little underwhelming

Desserts: 🍌 - Fried banana [$12.8] - the GOAT and not for sharing 🥥 - Coconut jelly [$12.8] - a little bland, the coconut flavour was too subtle

4.3/5 ✨ Overall, everything was really good! All of the dishes are classic Canto dishes that you can find anywhere else at the same price point, but what stood out here was the presentation and the quality of the ingredients. I was so sad that they sold out of the Peking duck on the day, but that just gives me an excuse to go back! It looks soooo good in all the videos I've seen and it's $88 for the whole Peking Duck set (on par with everywhere else).

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Overall had a nice night. The venue is stunning but you kind of get the vibe that its a regular chinese restaurant masquerading as fine dining.

The pros: Food tastes as good as any other chinese restaurant. Peking duck doesn't require pre-booking and is freshly sliced in front of you and tastes good although I note that it came out within 5mins of us ordering which is suspiciously fast. The duck is served with a fried rice rather than a noodle. No soup is included. The venue is stunning, very fancy and comfortable.

The cons: The dish portions are pretty small and relatively expensive considering. The main dishes came out one by one and were sitting on the table awhile until we reminded the staff we were waiting for the rice before we can start eating. I imagine that quite a bit of MSG is used in the dishes as I was beyond thirsty the days after the dinner. The staff are lovely but clueless. They bring you the drinks menu and forget to bring you the food menu. They ask you if you're ready to order food before you've received the menus. They stand in the bar and stare blankly into nothing rather than patrolling and helping the customers. They don't have any answers and have to defer back to the boss who is running around doing all the work. They come and ask if they can clear the plates away when there is clearly food on them. Perhaps a bit of training is warranted. Not an issue but a bit odd that the menu comprises of printed paper in display book with plastic sleeves like a primarily...

This one could just as easily rate one or 5 stars.

We've been 4 times over a few weeks

The good: The food is as a good as we've had ANYWHERE. Really fabulous tasty Asian food. Easily the best in the area and will give most in Melbourne a run for their money. The local competition's quality can vary every other visit but this is really consistent. Standout dishes are the hot and sour soup, Mongolian beef (10/10) and the black pepper beef. They also do the full Peking duck banquet or standard half or full duck in pancakes. It's excellent.

Plenty of specials too.

The bad is sad: Other than the fabulous manager with many years of experience,the staff have had no hospitality training and are wearing virtual L plates. Very polite but not up to scratch for a restaurant charging the prices they do.

Don't get a seat looking out to the street. There are blinding LED lights under the awning facing in to the room. Move tables or bring sunnie's.

The outside signage does the place no favours with large pictures of food plastered on the windows giving it a cheap look and not reflecting the stylish fit out.

Go on a quiet night mid week and have your taste...