China Bar Blackburn Square — Restaurant in Melbourne

My son and I were looking forward to trying the China Bar, Blackburn Square. We regularly dine in at the Glenferrie store so we had a base to compare to. There is only one entrance door which is on the outside of shopping centre. There was a lunch special-order 2 dishes, get one free. But that would have been too much for us. At Glenferrie they have a rotating lunch special for $13.95- Wed it’s the duck roast with rice & greens. Here it was over $20. We ordered Hainese chicken rice, a beef stir fry with rice, a Coke Zero and a mixer drink- lemon, lime & bitters which took 20 mins to come in a paper cup! The beef stir fry was just passable…. nothing to right home about. The Hainese chicken rice, compared to the Glenferrie Rd store, was SO salty- actually the rice & the stock soup bowl was a shade of yellow- far too much stock powder making them inedible (the soup bowl also had a massive chip on the lip edge). The chicken was just warm and the portion was half the thickness of the Glenferrie store- most of it was slimy chicken skin with very little chicken meat. Very little salad or herbs. It’s self serve for water, glasses & condiments over at the back of the store. Nobody came to take our order and every item came out at different times. This store has a long way to go to be up to scratch. It’s not surprising that we will never order from this...

Diner beware, double check your order with both verbal and finger point to the menu photo. And just laugh if they still get your order wrong and insist on being right.

We come regularly, staff were great to us all the while until one day we ordered the roast duck noodles but what came was the roast chicken. Staff became passionately rude and insisted we pointed at the photo of the roast chicken. All I can think of is, what financial loss is it to them to annoy customers this much.

We caved and purchased another roast duck noodles. Another time we came back and pointed to a combination noodles. The same staff still managed to get the order wrong, and this time insisted that she had repeated the order to us. I recalled her repeating, but it was in English referring to some Chinese style noodles which sounded quite the same. Again, I wonder what loss could they suffer from just making another dish. I just laughed this time because the prior time they insisted we pointed at it, this time we made sure we pointed at the correct one and still they get it wrong. Service is negative stars at this point. They will keep making excuses and passionately be rude to not own up to any mistake. They had even increased $1.60 on each...

I have visited China Bar a lot over the years frequently ordering the Combination Crispy Noodle dish amongst others.

Today, however, I visited the newly opened China Bar at North Blackburn Square on Springfield Road, and as usual, had the Combination Crispy Noodles. It was absolutely gorgeous, the best I've ever had at a China Bar. Healthy, delicious and reasonably priced ($17.50).

I must mention though, that the staff were fabulous too... a really good team. I was served by a lovely young lady named Sissy and she was a delight. But all the team (including the chefs) were lovely; engaging with customers and their children, holding doors open for people and offering a genuine "Thank you" when I left.

Great job guys. Highly recommended. All the very best for many years to...