Old Beijing — Restaurant in Melbourne

NEW EDIT BELOW! Been twice, in fairly largish groups. Variety of food is quite expansive, plenty to choose from, decor and ambience is lively and upbeat, it's always busy. Pricing is quite decent, quality food that does not break the bank even with a few rounds and bottles of alcohol shared among everyone. My personal highlights were truffle xiao long bao, Peking duck (skin was satisfyingly crisp and I don't even like duck all that much), truffle mushroom fried rice and the Tuna sashimi w/ apple and shallot oil! so good! Service can be hit or miss in terms of orders making its way to the kitchen or bar, the first time our waiter was exceptional, got all our orders correct, stopped us over ordering and was attentive and friendly. Our second experience, we had 2 young-ish staff forget to put through cocktail orders and got us a glass of wine instead of the bottle (we had to pay for the mistake), they were both friendly but one said he was new and explained to us it was the other waitress' first shift so we let it slide, the food was good and we had a good dinner. Great for large groups.

THIRD VISIT- very disappointing, food was mostly on par with other visits which was good and came out quickly but that is probably where the positives end on this recent visit. The drinks came out well over an hour after being ordered, we literally were eating most our meal without any drinks which was ordered before the food, the excuse was 'we ran out of glasses'.... seriously? how does a restaurant run out of glasses? I mean sure it's not impossible but there's a Big W downstairs and picking up a few cheap glass sets is not hard, but instead waiting for other patrons to finish their drinks was their solution, not good enough! We had a booking, we arrived on time, but our table was not ready, which is fine, but we waited over 30 minutes! I know kicking people off tables is hard, but it should not be at the expense of people who booked a certain time not only that it was a late booking, so we also had less time at our table before getting the nudge that they were closing. Also, what's with removing condiments off the table mid dinner? We were told they were 'topping up' but never returned, they did this on every visit, and I only noticed how annoying it was this time as we were still eating and found it quite rude, like are they trying to save on condiments, it's basically just soy, vinegar and chili oil? so weird. I think a lot needs to be improved in the service aspect of Old Beijing, it seems to be getting worse each visit, I've noticed excuses are not apologetic, more like an inconvenience that we even bring up any issues. This will probably be my last visit here until they improve their overall service and the way they run a smooth operating restaurant...

Food was excellent. Some people may find the food bland but good quality ingredients have been used and I didn’t feel they skimped on the ingredients for the price charged (total came to $148). Complimentary soy sauce, their own made chilli oil and vinegar are available at the table for guests to adjust the food to their taste buds.

I had half a Peking duck course (Peking duck was good with most of the duck fat being rendered off and although not heavily spiced, there was no gaminess (👍🏻 for no duck gaminess. Bean sprouts and duck soup were pleasant but nothing wow. I would have preferred sang choi bau in lieu of the two courses).

I tried the prawn and loofah XLB, they were plain by itself but dipping in some soy sauce and vinegar elevated it. I also had the prawn roe squid ink dumpling, again it is not heavily seasoned so you get the natural taste of the ingredients which you can only do if ingredients were fresh.

I also ordered pork belly with chestnut which was very good (plenty of chestnuts, pork belly was gelatinous and melt in the mouth), yang Zhou fried rice was ok (plenty of prawns, good rice used but not the same like the Din tai fung fried rice I had in Taiwan) and the last order was the French beans. French beans was ok, the beans tasted fresh but I prefer it being cooked in Sichuan style.

Ambience/restaurant was nice and buzzing on a Mon night. Advisable to book ahead.

General staff: The initial waitress was good, polite and not pushy. We were not sure about drinks and she straight away offered tap water without any judgement. The only minus, I wished she had told me that I ordered too much food for two people! There was another waitress that only served us the duck soup but then abruptly took it away without any apologies and when I tried to ask her what’s wrong she just kinda ignored me, very strange behaviour. Then a few minutes later, served us that same soup. Would have been easy just to quickly apologize and inform the customer that you need to check the order. Anyway, Ned the restaurant manager stepped in, apologized and turned the awkward situation around. Great job, Ned. The F&B business need more people like you, engaging and pleasant...

Lunch @OldBeijingMelbourne Situated in QV there's plenty of seating and got a table with a lazy Susan which worked well for our group and the number of dishes ordered.

B01 Xiao Long Bao - delicious soft dumpling skin surrounding the pork mixture and a flavoursome broth.

D12 Chicken Wantons in Hot Chilli - stuffed with tender chicken these presented lovely dumplings with a delicious chilli oil sauce with some kick.

SF20 Salt and Pepper Calamari - golden brown crunchy batter surrounding perfectly cooked tender calamari with a perfect seasoning of salt and pepper, very enjoyable.

B22 Dongpo Five Spice Beef Short Ribs - lovely sticky deep rich sauce smothering the tender beef with lovely five spice flavour but a bit fiddly getting them off the bones but worth the effort for the taste. Yum!

P39 Slow Braised Pork Belly with Chestnut In Soya Sauce - can't go to a Chinese restaurant and not have pork in some form and the way they do pork belly is always a delight and was no different here. Lovely succulent pork smothered in a delicious sauce, soft chestnuts to provide an earthy flavour, so yum.

R09 Truffle and Forest Mushroom Fried Rice - something luxurious and as soon as the dish was served the truffle aroma wafted about. Each spoonful matched the aroma with flavoursome truffle emanating throughout the wonderful cooked fried rice.

N08 Stir Fry Noodle with Shredded Pork and Beans - this was the weakest of the dishes and was lacking the same punch of flavour as the other dishes which were superb.

Really enjoyable dining experience with delicious flavoursome food served. Getting steamed rice allowed one to mop up the sauce in any of the leftover dishes. Chinese tea added that warming and refreshing accompaniment to the meal. We all loved it.

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