ONDA Bar & Eatery — Restaurant in Melbourne

Onda is a new Latin American restaurant in the bustling Bridge Road area of Richmond. They serve a dazzling array of small and sharing dishes, with a range of cocktails and desserts too. The restaurant has a pink feature wall brightening up the room, and a blue swirl of booths in the middle of the restaurant discrete dining spaces that you can still peek over to see what the neighbours are eating next door!

We started off with cassava, sweet potato chips and guacamole. The slice of lemon was a nice touch. These were crispy, crunchy and left me wanting more.

Next up, Wild Fungi serve in the wood where it was grown. These mushrooms came in served in earthy wood, giving it a great aroma and presentation. I could taste black wood ear, oyster, swiss brown and Shimigi mushrooms, with pickled shallots for good measure. Just a great variety of textures in there. Really nice vegan option.

The wagyu brisket was tender and delicious, with an intense sweet potato puree and chimichurri underneath. Nice plating presentation too.

We decided to lighten things up with a broccolini salad next. The highlight of the salad was the toasted almond dressing/sauce in on the bottom, an oily delight. I kind of wished we were recommended a lighter salad with all the other meat dishes, but definitely a delicious dish on its own merits.

Now for the highlight! The crispy pork belly was rich and decadent. More meaty flavours came in the form of beef fat croutons, and even a beef sauce to pour on top! Struth, there were two types of beetroot on the side, a purple puree and a yellow pickled version. Hiding underneath we found mofongo, a amazing mushy and seasoned banana cake. This dish is a must-have.

The staff were relaxed and friendly. Their menu was refreshed this week, and we were really impressed. The prices are good value considering the portion sizes. Lots of dairy-free options on the menu too. If you’re looking for a great Latin American restaurant, I’d highly...

Don’t do Bottomless Brunch! Not worth your time or $59pp.

Booked in advance for Mothers Day and we understand that it can be busy but everyone else around us was getting their food whilst we waited 30 mins + just to get our beef, chicken and mushroom tacos. Was told the cauliflower tacos would be coming soon and they came out after another almost 30 minute wait. By the time the 90 minutes was almost up, we’d only had 1.5 rounds of the “unlimited” tacos that was advertised. They offered to extend our time but we had somewhere to go and we were not expecting the food to come out any quicker.

The mushroom taco was 1% mushroom 99% capsicum. The prawn taco was not tiger prawn just small cold prawns. Cauliflower and beef taco was 50% bbq sauce. The chicken taco was the only one that was great.

The unlimited alcoholic jugs barely had any alcohol in them. The mimosa tasted like straight up orange juice and the other jugs were just the same. Bit disappointing to advertise them as unlimited alcoholic drinks when there is barely any alcohol in them.

The wait staff were apologetic and did give us an extra bowl of nachos (hence the 2 stars) as we were waiting long but do not come for the bottomless. Saw in a previous post that they were offered a 5% discount, we weren’t offered anything.

We were the only people in the restaurant at the time doing bottomless so it would’ve been nice if we were offered another menu such as the feed me if they knew the food was taking awhile. So we ended up paying for half the amount of food and drinks for twice the price which is...

Update ** I went home with a sore throat after eating there and your server agreed that it was from an aluminium scourer. I haven’t hid anything, I did comment that you took a percentage off of the bill. I would like to add that the server didn’t know whether your drinks menu had gluten in them or not as well, for a coeliac accredited restaurant this made me on edge to dine in there. We had small children with us. We wanted to get out of the restaurant without making a scene which I’m sure is understandable. Server was lovely, the niceness of the staff was not an issue. Beginning to end I was not impressed and honestly being coeliac, I won’t be going back. I will add photos of the raw chicken wing for you.

Was excited to try this place because I am coeliac, took my family with me. Bad experience from start to finish. - chicken wings inside were raw, kids had already eaten half of them by the time we realised. Server got one of our orders wrong and I had to eat after everyone was finished. That dish was the stuffed capsicum and I swallowed something hard, went to keep eating and found a long piece of metal in the food. We figured out with the staff that it was from an old metal scourer that they use to clean the grill with. Very dangerous. I’m actually chronically ill and I really don’t need another health issue from eating out with my family which is suppose to be a treat. While they deducted some money off of the bill honestly won’t be worth the stress of possibly getting sick from the chicken/ a sore throat from ingesting...