DARAC KOREAN RESTAURANT & BAR — Restaurant in Melbourne

Foot traffic to this restaurant is probably affected by the nearby tunnel construction as well as Covid, turning A'Beckett Street into a quiet spot. There's an express lunch menu as well as the full menu. We chose the Bulgogi BBQ set and the Pork Spare Ribs and settled back to wait.

When the marinated BBQ beef plate arrived, we knew our eyes were too big for the stomach because the portion size was so generous. The attentive waiter took care of the BBQing, frequently coming back to turn over the meat and adjust the flame. The sweetness of the BBQ'ed beef was highlighted by the complementary sauces. The Kimchi stew that came with it was warming on a cold, winter's day. The Pork Spare Ribs however were overcooked, tough and became a chewing exercise, reflecting the rating.

There was a charge of 50 cents for a container to take home what we couldn't finish, which seems really petty to me. The single male staff was polite and very efficient throughout the visit. There are lots of great Korean restaurants in and around Melbourne, so this one doesn't quite...

darac has been around for quite a while, but it has been our burning restaurant secret (until now!) We made reservations on a particularly chilly Saturday night for darac and it turned out to be a good thing - the restaurant was turning people away because it was full!

They sell a wide array of Korean dishes, including huge jugs of soju. I especially love love love the army stew here - the standard version comes with a wide variety of ingredients like tofu, macaroni, pork belly slices, spam and tteokbokki. If you prefer to have more spam, you can either order the spam sausage stew or just ask for it as an add on!

Do NOT forget to order ramen because it just goes so well with this stew. The staff will also constantly add hot water to your stew as you demolish it. We didn’t think it was too spicy, but would be good to check with the owner when you order if you have specific preferences.

Came down to about $20-30 pp which I thought was reasonable. See you...

Not sure about all the positive reviews. Our experience was wildly different.

Where do I even begin?? Let’s start with being Covid safe. This is the first place that I have been to that seems to have forgotten about social distancing. The people who run the place seem to be oblivious to the fact that this is still a Covid environment and that Melbourne is still just coming out of restrictions. Patrons were seated so close to each other without any evidence of social distancing. Tables were so closely spaced, less than a meter apart. (Photo evidence provided)

Then we get to the food. We’ve eaten Korean food soo many times now and this has been the worst. The food was tasteless and greasy. We ordered for fried chicken and beef bulgogi. The chicken was not crunchy and was very oily. Furthermore the sauce was straight out of a bottle. The beef was worse than what you might get from a novice cook. I could have made both better myself.

Would give one...