Salted Egg — Restaurant in Melbourne

ORDERED: Set menu ($75.00pp) 🦪  Pacific oyster with red nahm jim, coriander and fried shallots 🍃  Smoked duck betel leaf with jeaw, lemongrass, mint and coriander 🐟  Raw kingfish with green nahm jim, taro chips, salmon caviar and shiso 🥟 Prawn and ginger dumpling with Sichuan oil and prickly ash salt

🥭 Crispy fish salad with green mango, shiso leaf salad and mandarin dressing 🦞 Stir fried slipper lobster with curry powder, Asian celery and oyster mushrooms 🐷 Crispy pork with plum sauce, fried shallots, coriander and nahm prik pla 🍚  Jasmine rice

🍰  Dessert sample plate

I spent $85.52 here, which included one drink and credit card surcharge.

REVIEW: I absolutely adored the food at Salted Egg. This is the one restaurant that's convinced me expensive Thai food is worth it, when I usually dislike Thai cuisine in general. With the set menu, they've got to jam pack as much thai flavours into bite size pieces as possible. ✅  This was extremely well done in the entree set - really strong tangy and bright flavours coming through. They also didn't forget about texture, with the smattering on shallots adding in depth and crunchiness. Entrees were definitely my favourite. ✅  To shed light on the mains, it was a great collaboration of flavours and textures again. Soft green mango, perfectly paired with pile of dusty crispy fish. Stir fried lobster was interesting and easily pulled off the shell, while I'm whole heartedly convinced Thai restaurants can never do crispy pork wrong. A layer of glutinous fat really brings out the flavour, and the crunch is so incredibly satisfying. Wins all around! The dessert was a nice way to finish, but wasn't as strong as the entrees or mains. They didn't feel particularly 'Thai', with the bombe alaska or the mille feuille rendition. It was a step too far into the modern cuisine, pulling me away from the illusion of it being modernised high end Thai 💫

Service was friendly. Atmosphere is intimate with its dark moody colours but the views of the street below / the other buildings aren't worth mentioning. It was a little quiet, but it was perfect because we had all their...

SALTED EGG

Hidden but worth finding

Salted is on the first floor of the Quincy Hotel at 509 Flinders Lane in the city. Not exactly the end of town you tend to look at when searching for restaurants. Fortunately, a friend had dined here and recommended we visit. I am very pleased we took on that suggestion.

The setting is nice with a variety of table set ups to cater for two through to large groups and the team is certainly friendly, with a warm welcome, and close attention all evening. The only suggested improvement is to be a little slower in bringing the plates out. We could have taken a little longer to savour each one.

Now, let’s talk food. It is what this is all about. There are a range of set menus available which offer great value and variety. They even had a specific pescatarian set menu that we considered. In the end we opted on ordering from the a la carte menu to enjoy a variety of delights.

Beginning with a two-bite taster in the Pomelo betel leaf with cucumber, peanuts, roasted coconut and palm caramel, the tastebuds were woken up and we looked forward to what was next.

The Son-in-law eggs with yellow bean sauce, green mango and herb salad were a genuine surprise and very tasty indeed. The vegetable spring rolls with pickled daikon and carrot, lettuce, mint and nuoc cham wrapped in lettuce leaves were absolutely delicious. Genuine flavour followed with my favourite, the Shiitake mushroom dumpling with Chinese black vinegar and chilli oil. There is a real bite in heat but, it is just enough to make these dumplings a real treat.

Our main-sized dish was the grilled hapuka with sambal wrapped in banana leaf with a spiced pineapple chutney. The fish was beautifully cooked and the sambal full of flavour.

There was room for dessert and we both enjoyed the dark chocolate mousse with caramelised cocoa crisps, mandarin gel and Vietnamese coffee ice cream. Loved the mandarin gel and the mousse was not sickly sweet at all.

Salted Egg is well-priced and the food is very nice. I suggest you find your way down to the west side of town...

Ah, Salted Egg. A name that once promised such delight but has now transformed into a bitter reminder of how quickly things can go south. Armed with high expectations set by the previous experience when we dined here, we brought along an important guest to this supposed gem as the very first destination during our latest visit to Melbourne. And yet, it ended up being a bitter disappointment, one that still leaves a sour aftertaste in my mouth.

Let’s start with the service – or lack thereof. Imagine requesting simply tap water and being served “still” water that sneakily adds $20 to your bill. The audacity! We were the only table in sight, yet flagging down any of the staff for basic service turned into a Herculean task for some reason. It took us so much effort to indicate that we were ready for the next course, that we were left floundering through the evening, ultimately running late to our concert and dashing out in a flustered mess.

The food, once a highlight of our visit, had now turned into a train wreck. We went for the $79pp tasting menu, a decision we soon regretted. The grilled king prawns arrived, un-deveined, leaving us to deal with the gritty, stinky, gut-laden insides – a revolting experience that no one should endure anywhere, let alone at this "fine-ish" dining venue. And the desserts looked like someone’s half-hearted attempt at plating leftovers – a sad, sloppy mess that screamed indifference.

This dining experience was such a failure that it almost felt deliberate. If it weren’t for the pleasant memories of our first visit, this place would have earned a one-star review. We won’t be returning, and I suggest you save your time, money, and sanity by...