Moon Mart — Restaurant in Melbourne

I waited more one hour and noticed some tables became empty for 15 minutes before somebody go to clean it up, and then another 10 minutes before they seat someone new. I went to the front of house staff raised this observation of the inefficiency. “Could you please clean a few tables so some of us can be seated? There are two empty outside…”(I didn’t get to quite finished the sentence). With their moistened eyes and shaky voice, the staff told me they know how to do their job, and didn’t appreciate me tried to interfere with their process. The person was under extreme pressure I could tell, and I realised I’d better retreat to the queue or no chance I am gonna be seated for another hour… Turn out, it all happened within two minutes! The same staff came at me as I retreated outside, padded my arm and wanted to speak with me. So quick already? I wish 😂! They basically repeat what they just said to me and warned not to come to make any comments on their service again- they really didn’t like it. I replied, I am not going to as long as you go ahead and do your job. They got very upset again, turned to me and took a rather exaggerated bow, and told me: We don’t want to serve you. Please go. What happened next? How did it all end? My friends asked me. Well I am frank about this, I didn’t feel safe to stay any longer. If raise a criticism about their inefficiency after one hour waiting could trigger all the above, what would happen to me if I DID eat there and, didn’t like it… 🫣 Guess I can’t rate their food for yall, but one star for the unique experience(because 0 is not a number in Google...

ORDERED: 🥪 Berkshire pork katsu with mustard & bulldog sauce sando ($20.00) 🥪 Egg salad, green chilli & anchovy sando ($15.00)

🌻 Iced Chrysanthemum with pandan ($7.00) ☕ Iced Latte with condensed milk, cream & peanut praline ($8.00)

I spent $36.60 here, including card surcharge.

REVIEW: This Korean Japanese cafe is very cute. A happy yellow island in the sea of apartment buildings, it's unique and very popular. We waited an hour from the time we had our names down (12:00pm) to actually getting food served in front of us.

I hear the katsu sando is one of the best sellers. Personally, the pork was a little thick for my liking, but it was still quite juicy. Considering it's a "heavy" meal with its white bread construction and pork filling, Moon Mart didn't go with the traditional tonkatsu sauce and kept things light with the mustard. Great choice by them! Egg salad was also fun. There wasn't any anchovy pieces (that I saw), but it definitely has the salty element. Salt just perfect for bringing out the egg flavour! 🧂

The drinks left... a little more to be desired. I was expecting the sweet grassy flavour from the pandan coming through but it just tasted as pure chrysanthemum.  😪 For an $8 latte, I was expecting a little more too. It was just an iced latte with cream and peanut praline... I was hoping for more sweetness from the condensed milk and more of a strong peanut flavour.

Service was really friendly! Great service and joyful vibes from the gentleman in glasses. The table we sat on felt a little too economical, but I guess it matched the...

I really wanted to love this place but I left quite unsatisfied.

The cafe itself is beautiful. Upon arriving on a late Sunday morning it was very busy as expected with a huge queue of customers.

We waited about 25mins but the front of house staff was super accomodating and very friendly. We brought our little dog with us and they were happy to seat us in the back courtyard which was still very comfortable despite the colder gloomy weather.

I was excited to order coffee but what we received was below average. Not at all the standard I thought it would be. Very bitter and watery. Maybe it was an off day or maybe the barista didn’t know how to make magics?

The food was a disappointment also. Again, I really wanted to love it but I just wasn’t happy with the flavours. I ordered the eggplant bibimbap. I did like the special sauce they had but that was about it. Everything else was either too bland or too overpowering, couldn’t enjoy the meal as a whole. And the fact I couldn’t find comfort in the coffee just made the entire experience quite lacklustre.

Maybe I’ll return again and try something else (there’s a few dishes that I might like) and I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say maybe it was a bad day for coffee haha.

Overall, lovely staff, beautiful cafe but unfortunately my first dining experience wasn’t the best due to terrible coffee and...