Tai Wah Chinese Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

Bad food and bad service.

I ordered lemon chicken takeaway and found out that their interpretation of lemon chicken was a woolies roast chicken, cut into pieces and dunked in sweet water. It was literally a woolies roast chicken because there was roasted skin on it and bones in it still and no batter.... $15~ by the way, without rice.. I could've bought my own ENTIRE roast chicken for that price and had a better experience. It defies belief. Also when I went to pick up the order the two staff actively tried to ignore that I was there when I was standing at the counter. It must be under new management after Covid ended or something because Tai Wah used to be the best local Chinese restaurants.

EDIT: the restaurant has since replied to my review - Their response is unfortunate and somewhat condescending though. Putting aside the mystical way that this restaurant has managed to deep fry chicken and have it look and taste exactly like a woolworth's roast chicken, I do have to address the comment about letting the staff know I'm there:

My expectation was that I state I'm there for a pick-up order, the staff checks if it's there or not, and if it isn't then they let me know it'll be another few minutes. I don't think that is a particularly greedy expectation.

Here is how the interaction actually went down: I state that I'm there for pickup. Staff member #1 says ok without checking my name or where I've ordered from and walks off. They do not tell me if my order is ready or if it will be a few minutes. Here I have made the mistake of assuming that they will give me my order when it is ready. Unbeknownst to me they have instead decided to not acknowledge my existence ever again. Queue Staff member #2 who also has decided to ignore my existence for the moment. 15 minutes pass since my order was supposed to be ready and nothing has been mentioned to me, despite having spoken to staff member #1. For a second time, I explain that I'm waiting for pickup but this time to staff member #2. They actually go check and lo-and-behold, my order was ready the whole time, sitting on the floor at the...

UPDATE 22/7/2022 After getting good reports about the food here from my wife who had eaten in a couple of times, I decided to visit for lunch and put them to the test and boy, what a surprise I got and my wife was stunned how quickly it had gone down hill. We started with short soup, this was rather watery in that it lacked flavour, the 5 small wontons were very much that, a pea sized piece of meat in each small wrapper. For mains I chose Steak with Beanshoots and my wife King Spare Ribs and we decided to share a Fried Rice. The steak and beenshoots were ok but nothing special, very few pieces of meat hidden under a lot of beanshoots in a rather watery juice. The meat had not been velveted that I could tell as it was rather chewy. The King Spare Ribs was an absolute eye opener, chunks of pork belly hosted in a heap of onions and a plum sauce, not much pork belly at that, the dish was ok, rather tasty but FAR too much onion which doesn't make up for the lack of meat and not sure how they can call pieces of pork belly King Spare Ribs. Now the fried rice, it was gruesome and a long time ago it was fried if at all, straight out of the microwave with shriveled up egg, pork, and peas and rice so dry it seemed as if some of it wasn't even cooked. After complaining about the rice the waitress took it away and said she would have some fresh fried rice made for us, 5 minutes later out comes the same rubbish, we refused to eat the junk. To be fair, we were not charged for the rice. Overall it wasn't the worst chinese food I have had, but very close to it. The stingey serves are nothing like the mounds of food they used to serve and once again when I pay for FRIED rice that's what I expect to receive, not microwaved rubbish.My wife actualkly commented that she couldn't believe the change in the place and that she would not return for such poor serves. EARLIER REVIEW These guys are supposed make the best dim sims in Victoria. Well I reckon they are one of the worst I've had. More beef than anything bits of bone and gristle and taste horrid. Skins far too thick...

Went to this restaurant recently and it was so full of people yet only a couple staff members, definitely not enough for the amount of people sitting in there. It’s pretty shabby too we saw a homeless person walking in and out of the venue to use the bathroom and brought his dog inside. Also super overcrowded. We waited 10 minutes at the front to get walked to our table but no one came so we just took a seat on a table ourselves. Couldn’t order as no waiter and took 45 minutes to get the attention of a waiter to order as waiter was running back and forth to the kitchen to serve takeaway orders but think they forgot that they have people sitting in the restaurant. Food came an hour later and we were hungry and very disappointed. The food is bland made for people with not much of a taste palette pretty clearly the food is not traditionally made and doesn’t taste fresh either. There were tons of people walking in and out of the restaurant for takeaway orders and standing there making the place stuffy and uncomfortable as everyone was frustrated with how slow this place was. Some people I saw even refused the food they ordered once it came out as they were tired of waiting. Do not go to this place unless you are interested in waiting a very long time for a meal that has not much flavour. Only good thing about this place is that it’s cheap but overall not worth it for the experience. We were left feeling unfulfilled. At the end had to ring a bell to get the attention of the waiter after another 10 minutes of waiting just to pay for our meals! Could’ve probably walked out of there without anyone knowing as no staff on the floor. The Thai place down the road looks much better and less busy might try...