Kitchen Republik — Restaurant in Melbourne

Rude service from a waitress named Chloe.

We went for dinner as a group of 10 and I informed the front staff that some of us might have already arrived and sitting somewhere in the shop. The front waiter replied me "sure, go ahead" so I went in and looking for my friends, I went directly to upstairs as we always eating upstairs so I assumed they could be sitting there, I was yelled by a piercing screaming voice from a waitress name Chloe. I simply explained I was looking for my friends and they might be upstairs. "No! No you can't go to upstairs?" She shouted. It made me very confused, if my friends are upstairs, why I am not allowed to sit with them. "No! You can't! There is no one there and you can't go to upstairs" she yelled while shaking her head. she could have just told me there is no customers yet instead of yelling at her customer in such aggressive manners.

After I realised I was the first one arrived the shop, I asked that if we can get a big table upstairs by any chance. She insisted I can't go to upstairs even I explained we are a group of 10 and there might not be enough room downstairs. And then she offered us a combined table for 8 seats. (??)

Most interesting part is after we gave them our order and menus, there are few different groups of customers were led to upstairs.

I was thinking even the table upstairs were booked out, they can politely tell me what the situation or reason is. Not just repeatedly saying no to me. There must be better way to solve this misunderstanding if this was the case.

In terms of food, my beef noodles were good but my friend's pork chop wasn't cooked properly. We had to send it back and ask...

Finally tried eating here. There was a queue during lunch time on a Sunday. Place has a nice night market vibe and very busy although the floor was dirty. Menu has dessert story, lots of nice drinks, Taiwanese street foods and noodles soup. Bento boxes’ price is very reasonable too. Ended up ordering a fried chicken noodle soup, beef pan fried dumplings, gluten with fungus, matcha drink with red bean and champagne milk tea. Noodle soup was subtle tasted, perfect for when you are sick and want comfort food. Noodle was nice and soft, and the amount of greens are a bit more generous than most places. Food came out pretty quick, like less than 10 mins from ordering. Fried chicken came separately from the noodle soup, was crispy on the outside, cooked well although I feel they can put more spice to make it taste more interesting. Dumplings came quite late, we almost finished eating everything before it came. It came with nice web decoration that is edible and taste nice too! Dumpling was crispy on the outside but taste wise it was a bit boring. The gluten with mushrooms was nice and sweet, although there is hardly any mushrooms in it. The matcha drink was really nice. Champagne milk tea is basically milk tea with no ice but cold enough for me anyway. It was pretty strong tea, more towards bitter but nice....

Have to say really disappointed, they do a large variety of what the place advertised as "Tawianese" dishes, however of the 6 dishes we ordered, 5 were sub par. Wish they do a smaller varieties and better and more authentic food.

The only dish was good was the the popcorn chicken.

Stir Fry Pipes: so much sand in the pipes made it unpleasant, too heavy with the sauce which made it salty. Taiwanese food should be on the sweeter side.

The Taiwanese style vermicelli: the vermicelli was not cooked through, not enough sauce, lacked sauce and flavour, was super dry overall and bland.

Fried Oyster Omelette: had to hunt for the baby oysters, it was made it too thin so on the dry side, the sauce was wrong.

Pan Fried Pork Bun: it is not as advertised in Chinese and the filling was more Chinese than Taiwanese flavour. This bun was first steamed and than pan fried which is not how it should be made.

Pan-fried beef dumplings: I know it says dumplings in English, but pot stickers in Chinese and this was false advertising in Chinese. Lastly the filling was more Chinese than Taiwanese flavour.

Overall did not enjoy and will not return. Should've listened to...