Phi Phi — Restaurant in Melbourne

Today marks my third visit to this restaurant. My first visit was with a group of 11 colleagues from my partner's workplace, and the second and third visits were with my family. So far, the prices have been very affordable, and the food has been consistently tasty.

Today, we were a table of 8 adults and 7 kids. Everything was good except that my drink and some dishes didn’t turn up. When we checked out, I approached the cashier to ensure we weren’t charged for the items we didn’t receive. The staff member who took my order accused me of trying to scam them, insisting that I had received the food and drinks, which I hadn’t. This accusation left a particularly bad taste in my mouth, especially since my partner and I had highly recommended dining here. Out of the 10 dishes ordered for two tables, it wasn't surprising that there were a few misses. I had noted everything on my iPhone and kept track of what we received. Anyway, the cashier mediated the matter excellently. I simply asked for the milk tea and one of the corn soups (we ordered two for the kids but only received one) to be removed from the bill.

On our third visit, we ordered Mongolian Beef, Honey Chicken, and fried rice for the kids to share. For the adults, we had rice paper rolls with prawn, half roast duck, fried duck with lemon sauce, sautéed roasted duck meat wrap, duck coleslaw, curry coconut beef, and fried rice.

Everything was tasty, except for the fried duck with lemon sauce. Initially, we thought it would be roasted duck with lemon sauce, but instead, it was roasted duck that had been flour-coated, fried, and then doused in lemon sauce. As you can imagine, the flour coating fell off and didn’t really stick to the duck. Other than that, the food here is delicious.

Despite the hiccups, the overall experience at this restaurant has been positive. The food is generally tasty and affordable, making it a good choice for large groups and family gatherings. However, I would suggest being vigilant with your orders to ensure that everything you request is served especially...

The food is of a high quality and good taste but there are a few surprises here, things to know, going in.

First is that they garnish a few dishes with Italian/flat leaf parsley. No it's not a misunderstanding or mistake. I've eaten here twice a few weeks apart and both dishes were garnished with it. I doubt very much their buyers are accidentally ending up with parsley instead of cilantro. So keep this in mind because it was a little jarring to start eating a Chinese style noodle dish with char siu and get a big bang of parsley on top. I've never been to Vietnam or China so I don't know if this is actually a regional/authentic thing. I don't enjoy it however and eat around it.

The other thing is a lot of their dishes will specify rice noodle in English but you end up with clear cellophane / bean thread noodles. Maybe I'm ignorant but that's not what I expected when ordering rice noodle. So just a heads up.

The roast duck at Thuan Phat next door was better, and Phi Phi both times I came (6pm) had run out of siu yuk roast pork so can't compare.

The gai lan with oyster sauce was only $18 which is a bit more affordable, and was nice thin young stalks not chewy, and their prices generally are a little lower than next door.

I'd come back but need to figure out what...

5 adults, 3 kids. Last meal came out after a person already finished theirs. Every serve of rice was dry... like pre cooked and fridged, microwaved before served. Chicken was raw. The vietnamese signature coconut drinks you can get at the shops are bought, watered down and split into two drinks. You can tell because it tastes the same but watered down, even the pieces of coconut are split because you can tell that is about half when you buy the actual drink and its exactly the same... all you hear is a sorry at every table. Heck when I came in tonight, a guy was walking out with a mate said "looks like I'm never coming back". Should have walked out with him at the start. Meals come with sauce and a soup as per usual, some meals missed sauce, others missed soup. Broken rice? Nah they don't serve that after 4 because the pork skin noodles, which is one of the components in the dish, has no preservatives so they cant keep and sell throughout the day like every other pre cooked meal they fridged and microwave before serving in the arvo. Just get another chef for the PM guys or more microwaves to keep up with your tables at least. My bathroom has better decor, I mean the tiles are definately recycled from a...