Red Moon Cuisine 大公麻辣烫烧烤 — Restaurant in Melbourne

Extremely disappointing dining experience. I saw quite a few recommendations for this place on social media and went in with high expectations, only to later realize those posts were likely paid promotions arranged by the restaurant itself.

The space is extremely cramped. There’s a freezer for hotpot ingredients blocking half the entrance, and during winter, cold wind constantly rushes in every time someone opens the door. Eating while freezing is not what I signed up for.

Secondly, the ingredients were far from fresh. The barbecue we ordered tasted strange and off. One of the items—enoki mushrooms wrapped in tofu skin—had a slimy, sticky texture that was absolutely inedible. I had to spit it out immediately. When we pointed this out, the staff offered no apology or explanation, simply said they would remove the item from the bill. That’s it.

The hygiene situation wasn’t any better. Staff were walking back and forth between the kitchen and the dining area wearing slippers. The tableware clearly hadn’t been properly sanitized, definitely not high-temperature sterilized.

And the food? Honestly, not good at all. Some skewers were completely bland, while others were so salty they were hard to swallow.

Lastly—and this really shocked me—they don’t accept card payments. Only cash or bank transfers. Is that even acceptable in this...

You’d think this is some random Chinese cafe out in the suburb. Actually even though it looks unassuming, it is quite an authentic Rural Provincial Chinese restaurant. It serves meat skewers and spicy hot pot. They have a warmer at your table so that the food doesn’t become cold too quickly (good idea). I recommend the Lamb skewers and garlic bbq chicken wings. They have the $3 per skewer version and the $25 for 10-13 skewers. I recommend the $3 skewers because it is chunkier and more moist. There are lots of Chinese people having dinner there which speaks a lot for its food. The ambience is nothing to shout about, but it is exactly what a rural provincial Chinese restaurant looks like. So don’t expect anything trendy, just...

I called the restaurant owner and asked if 2000 I could dine in there cuz I am not sure if seats available at that time, he promised we definitely have seats at that time, then we drive FROM CBD just for this meal!!! Unfortunately, we had waited half an hour outside and still no seats for us. The restaurant owner said he has no idea, seats all unavailable. Till 2100 still couples of people waiting for seats front of us, we thought we can’t keep waiting there we all starving. I mean, if you don’t have seats, can you just tell us NOT AVAILABLE honestly, we can book other restaurants!!! Can’t believe we drive more than 20km and waiting half an hour, got nothing....