Morning Star Hotel — Restaurant in Melbourne

My partner, a friend of ours and I had dinner Sunday night, 13th April, 2025.

Gosh, really it's hard to say anything very good about our meals.

My partner had the fish and chips with the rhubarb panna cotta for dessert. Our friend had the minute steak and chips, and the rhubarb trifle with white chocolate for dessert, and I had the fennel and orange salad with olives and parsely (sic), and the trifle dessert.

Surely the meat and fish dishes could have come with a salad or some vegetables?

The batter on the fish was quite old and soggy with oil and my partner removed all the batter from the fish. I tasted the batter and have to say it didn't taste freshly made on Sunday, nor well drained after being deep fried, so quite heavy and oily.

The salad I had contained no more than two thin orange segments and in between the small handful of non-descript green leaves were very sad and manky, possibly mouldy parsley leaves, which I pushed to the side of the plate. They were not suitable to be eaten.

As for the desserts. The only part of any of them was the panna cotta. At least that seemed to have been cooked correctly. The rhubarb was overcooked and I had burnt bits in the rhubarb. It was some sort of jam, maybe? Overooked to a granular mush but with no flavour.

If there was white chocolate in the dish, we couldn't taste it. We couldn't actually decide if the trifle base was a very stale disk of shortcake or a biscuit, but certainly not a light cake as would be expected in a trifle.

All in all, a really disappointing meal for the...

Valentine's Day, hubby and I just going for a drive, happened upon this pub, we were bit hungry, okay give it a go we thought. Best decision we've made in months! Lovely lady greeted us, told us all about the food, beer garden etc. Pointed out the bar specials, wow, cheap just like old days, so we orders our meals, both had fish and calamari, got out drinks and off to the beer garden. Again, blown away, relaxed, comfortable, friendly atmosphere, very contented. Then in about 10 minutes a lovely young man brings our meals out, service with a smile. Now the food looked great, plenty on the plate, but guess what, it tasted even better! Awesome pub grub, everyone at least once in your lives, get down there and have a meal, a chat, a drink or whatever, this is the place to be. Hubby and I have been looking for a new pub to call home since our local changed hands and changed everything to become a yuppie pub, yuck, well we have found a new home. sorry staff of Morning Star you guys are stuck with us,,thanks for a lovely afternoon, see you very soon, cheers,...

Good quality steak and a good deal on steak night, but why only have happy hour on one day a week? Most pubs do happy hour every weekday. This place only offers cheaper drinks on Friday and I am not willing to pay $16 for a single pint of beer which means I have to eat my steak with a glass of tap water which just is not right. Also, why is the pub full of babies and noisy children? Aren't pubs meant to be a quiet haven for adults to consume alcohol? Why can't I enjoy a steak without the sound of screaming, whining children anywhere in Australia. This is not what pub culture is like in any of the other 20 countries I have visited. Do these little children ASK to be taken to an adult drinking establishment? Or is it selfserving, inconsiderate parents dragging their kids along to the place THEY want to go in just the same way that you can't take a plane to Bali without a dozen screaming babies belonging to entitled parents dragging their kids along for the ride. Anyway, the steak was yummy but I'd think twice about a second visit for the reasons I...