Old Street Hunan Restaurant City — Restaurant in Melbourne

A few months ago, I visited this restaurant and had a great experience. I was so impressed that I left a 5-star review, which ended up being viewed by over 3,000 people. I even recommended the place to many of my friends. Unfortunately, my most recent visit was a completely different story.

This time, the restaurant was much busier, but the service was noticeably worse. When I tried to place an order, I was told to scan a QR code. However, the system wasn’t working, so I went to the front desk for help. The staff member I spoke to was extremely unhelpful. When I explained that the app wasn’t working, she flatly told me, “If the app doesn’t work, you have to use WeChat.” There was no effort to assist or offer a solution, and her attitude was dismissive and rude.

What’s frustrating is that this wasn’t mentioned upfront when we arrived. Many of your customers likely don’t use WeChat and would have trouble navigating this process. It felt like the staff didn’t care at all.

To make matters worse, we ordered a stir-fried pork dish, but the wrong dish was brought to our table. When we pointed this out, the staff refused to correct the mistake.

Overall, the service during this visit was shockingly bad, especially compared to my first experience. I was truly disappointed, and I won’t be returning. I hope the management takes this feedback seriously and addresses these issues, as I would hate for others to have the same experience.

btw The staff member in question was the one wearing the blue...

Vomited a little bit on the walk back to the car :) (actually serious)

A truly memorable experience. After the hell of parking- not their fault- we were quite hungry. Fortunately there was no queue.

Kinda boring pickles are complementary. They were OK, nothing special.

We waited 30 minutes to get the first of 4 dishes, coriander and beef with chilli. I cook it at home so I was excited to try it. It was pretty bad, quite salty. The beef had the dreadful taste of overly tendered cheap meat.

After another 15 minutes we got a stir fried pork dish. Same awful meat. Chili level was intense. Very poor.

Next came stinky tofu. I didn't eat it but my partner found it average but still the best dish.

Finally, 60 minutes after ordering came a rice noodle and beef dish. The beef tasted like 4 day old roast beef you'd get at a highschool camp, awful. What was truly shocking however was the broth. Oh God it was bad. Genuinely smelt like a bin. I tasted it and spat it out. God awful.

This meal was 91 dollars. Very poor.

Walking back across la trobe St I had to vomit. Only a cupful or so. We both felt ill all the next day.

This restaurant has a high rating and a young clientele. I can only assume that, being young and dumb like we all once were, that this explains the rating.

We should have gone next door to...

I haven't been to Hunan, but it seemed like a very authentic place from what I know about their cuisine.

We ate 辣椒炒肉 (Hunan style stirfryed chilli and pork), 烟笋腊肉 (Smoked bamboo and cured pork), and a random 青菜 (smashed cucumber with garlic). The food tasted fantastic, I was particularly impressed by the seasoning on the cucumber which tasted pleasantly different from what I expect in Chinese restaurants. I would have loved to have tried the 田螺肉 (snail dishes) or the 剁椒魚頭 (two chilli fish head) to try the river-based Hunan food, but we didn't have enough people to justify it and I was nervous the person I was with wouldn't enjoy it.

Those three dishes were a little too much for us as two people so I'm glad we didn't order more.

Overall, great. Four stars because the rice portion was pretty small for the price (and rice is so necessary for the strong flavours of Hunan cuisine), service was QR code and pay at end which is a bit meh, and we were seated at a counter so I couldn't really comfortably face the person...