Hochi Mama — Restaurant in Melbourne

The beginning of the dinner was great - everyone’s plates looked fantastic, the music was nice and not too loud, ambiance absolutely well done, and we were starving. Nothing took to long, although they did forget the roti until we asked.

We had the tuna tataki, lobster taco, lamb curry, whole baramundi, and roti, as a part of the feed me now dish. I like the value proposition there, but when we had the small plates, we were certainly disappointed with the tuna size. 4 tiny pieces tbh are normally around 24 a la carte, I have to imagine they could have doubled that and their margins wouldn’t have suffered much. Lobster tacos were objectively the most balanced dish and our favorite, and although it was a small portion that was understandable. All the food looked great, and the tuna was fun and bright with the orange marmalade like sauce, but by the end everything was too sweet. The barramundi was the worst - nothing special, full of bones, fry soaked through with the coleslaw on top, and not very flavorful. Low meat amount and although this was a given for the cooking method, overcooked and dry in some areas. The lamb looked fantastic, the pumpkin was delicious, although the think part seemed purposefully undercooked - I thought it was interesting, not bad, but if it was fully cooked I certainly wouldn’t have been unhappy. The curry itself was incredibly sweet - I understand massaman can be a bit rich and overwhelming in large quantities, but this was just really, really sweet and the nuttiness was lost, and the pineapple I wasn’t a fan of - tbf my partner enjoyed it. The lamb was well cooked, but it’s just not that hard to do when you slow cook a leg like that, and I think in general fall of the bone tenderness with cuts like that are really a basic expectation. Just takes time and moisture.

The server was upselling a bit too hard and contradicting himself in moments (I.e. this will be a lot of food so don’t get much else, but get an additional taco for 7, and some rice with the roti). To be fair, we were full by the end, 50pp is not an unreasonable price for the experience.

But the worst part was honestly paying - handing me the card reader while looking directly over at me and the reader and pointing out the different tip options. I understand the motivation, but it’s just so unenjoyable when they’re right there shoving it at you like that. Psychologically, as a restaurant, you’d want to end your experience as well as possible as the last impression has the largest predictable effect on retention, and this just made me think about all the things I didn’t enjoy, instead of a seamless pay and move on. So with that in the foreground, I think this restaurant is a very stern 3 star rating, and there are a lot of very good, cheaper, equally tasty restaurants, but if you want a place that’s very new, interesting, and with an incredible...

After obsessing over where to eat, we dined at Hochi Mama for a belated birthday and I honestly can’t rate my experience highly enough.

Booked for 8:30pm on a Friday night, arrived a handful of minutes early to a completely packed venue. Dimly lit, pink neos and a fresh modern interior. Loud but not obnoxiously so.

We were quickly ushered to our table where we met a lovely young English woman, Daffodil who introduced herself, asked our dining frequency and then introduced us to the menu. Incredibly friendly and outgoing, we knew instantly we’d made the right choice and were in for a greet night.

Daffodil returned for drink orders and explained the menu. Typically, I’m not one to do the $pp set menus but this one is cracked. The amount of food you get for $49 is unbelievable. Daffodil made some suggestions based on dietary requirements and she was off. Returning minutes later with our cocktails.

That’s where this review should start, the drinks. Holy. Some of the tastiest cocktails we’ve had. True craftsmanship and care taken to prepare. Small details like intertwining the cucumbers in one of the drinks that I wouldn’t have cared either way for, but seeing it highly impressed me.

Daffodil returned with our starters, tuna tartare, chicken bao and a vegan bao. All good but the tuna slappppps. Highly recommended.

Our mains come out, massaman lamb, Chinese greens and some other vegan dish.. I dunno. Who really cares, haha. The lamb tho yikes. Some of the best massaman I’ve ever had!

Daffodil comes back around and checks in, this time bringing us a gorgeous orange shot complements from the bar to celebrate the birthday. A really lovely gesture, so nice we ordered another round.

Over the course of the evening Daffodil made us feel so welcomed. Her soft skills and customer focus is second to none. The food and drinks were 10/10 but her service went above that. Seldom do we talk about how well we were looked after in such a setting. It’s wonderful to see someone who loves her job and by extension, the food and drinks she’s servicing.

Right until the very end Daffodil was outstanding. Then she threw our plates on the ground shattering them everywhere and tried to charge me $300+ more than my tables bill was. 😂

Honestly though, I can’t thank Flora enough for making our evening what it was.

Absolutely recommend this restaurant, you’d be a fool not to dine...

We came here at 8pm on a weekend and it was super busy. The music was very loud, so not the ideal place to go for a quiet conversation, but the ambience was nice and noisy and uplifting. The red wedding cocktail was very fruit and amazing! Highly recommend, also they definitely put enough alcohol in their cocktails unlike other restaurants who go on stingy on actually putting alcohol in. The lycheezy cocktail was very average, had a nice lychee taste but after a few sips it was straight up alcohol rum tasting. I had the southside curry with chicken and it was delicious. The price was $24, not too bad for the size and had generous amount of chicken in it. The spice was tolerable, not too spicy but enough for a little kick and a need with rice on the side. It was very coconutty too so if you are not a fan of coconut, maybe it is not the right dish for you. It also had chunks of purple sweet potato which actually balanced the flavours quite well as it was quite bland with the spicy intense flavours of the curry and chicken. I had never tried curry with sweet potato before and it actually worked nicely. I also had a side of coconut rice which was cooked perfectly, the rice was fluffy and fresh, and I could definitely taste the richness of the infused coconut in each grain of rice. It was quite rich in coconut however, so I didn’t finish the rice. Overall I was happy with the main dish I paid for. I also tried some of the soft shell crab fried rice which had a nice blend of flavours and was quite tasty. The mama’s pad thai was also tasty and had a nice flavour but it was different to usual pad thais out there. It had a more fishy taste and the noodles they use are also different, it is thin vermicelli noodles they use instead of the usual rice noodles, which I guess picks up more of the sauce flavour. I also had the DIY prawn wraps which were definitely not worth it, it tasted super bland with only four leaves of lettuce, a tablespoon of vermicelli noodles and few fried wonton slices, definitely not worth $20. It lacked flavour and was really bland and small. Overall, the service was good and the ambience is loud and busy, but nice and upbeat. I would recommend the southside curry with coconut rice if you like coconut or the soft shell crab fried rice is a...