The Bear House Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

We visited this restaurant as a large group last night. Some chose to order the banquet, which cost $240 in total. Naturally, when you hear “banquet,” you expect a generous and well portioned meal especially at $40 per head or atleast more then what you get if you brought a single main dish. Unfortunately, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Our group was seated with the six banquet guests split between two ends of a long table. Three at one end and three at the other. When the food arrived, it was presented in such small quantities that we genuinely thought it was only for the three people at one end which it would have been okay for. It came with three main dishes, one large serve of rice and a couple of spring rolls.. for all six people. The dishes were passed awkwardly back and forth between ends of the table.

The portion sizes for all 6 people were hardly any bigger than the individual dish I personally ordered for only $23. In fact, the banquet provided so little food that I believe if only three people had ordered it, they would have received exactly the same amount. The fact there was only one large rice instead of 2, shows it was only actually a banquet for 3 otherwise it would have been 2 large rices. They definitely took advantage because there were six people ordering the same thing. Despite being similar in size, each banquet main effectively cost almost triple the price of a regular dish and tried to tell us that they doubled the portions on the 3 main plates. Rubbish.

To make matters worse, when the spring rolls came out as entrées, they only included two dipping sauces. Three of the guests assumed those sauces were just for them as again, it was in such a small quantity. They used them accordingly, expecting that another two would come out for the other half of the table. No.. those two sauces were all that was provided for all six people. Again, a complete lack of consideration for how our group was seated and how a banquet is normally served.

On top of that, the service was chaotic. Staff were visibly flustered, constantly rushing around, and the whole dine in service seemed secondary to takeaway orders. When we raised our concerns about the small portion sizes, it was brushed off and even awkwardly laughed at by staff.

To make it even worse, we asked for a bottle of soda water and were brought out a $2 Schweppes bottle.. then charged $12.80 for it. Honestly, madness!

At the end of the night, the six who paid for the banquet were left extremely disappointed, underfed and frustrated. $40 each for a handful of rice and what amounted to one small plate of food per person. If this had been a group of six men ordering the same banquet, they would’ve left starving. You don't expect to pay $40 a head and then needing to stop off at McDonald's to feel fed.

Food quality itself was good, we won’t deny that but the experience, the banquet value and the service fell far below expectation. If you're considering the banquet option, I’d strongly suggest avoiding it unless you enjoy paying premium prices for snack...

OMG .....PLEASE REMAIN CALM..

whatever you do, don't ask the wait staff , what a meal comprises of......poor kids. We ordered our entrees and mains and sometime . OK calmly 40 minutes later our main arrives . oh OK , excuse me where are our entrees . so we wait only a mere 10 minutes and my nice plump cold fried wontons arrive, which gives me and my lovely partner time to wait for the 2nd entree to arrive. lucky it was cool to scoff down as it must have been another 10 minutes for the piping hot entree to arrive."" a lovely piping hot chicken and prawn dish::....casually missing the prawn, how ever, never fear. the wait staff assure us , it was in there. somewhere.

So we discussed pleasantries while we wait for our mains Let it be known it is a very nice building : European chalet style big wrought iron chandeliers. meanwhile staff come and go like little ants in a hurry nowhere in particular, in the door out the door. back and forth in an endless hurry.....no where in particular. I , how ever surprisingly remain calm....... waiting for . oh here it is now .... our satay chicken , nice and hot . lovely fresh vegetables in a nice sweet sticky sweet sweet sauce , very befitting for a type 2 diabetic . oh , I forgot to mention...we had to ask is this satay chicken...surprise , surprise, surprise....would you like some satay sauce as an extra for that... oh yes please , that way we can have a sweet satay chicken meal. and something to dip our $5.00 a slice roti bread into..

Lets be fair. the veges were fresh. the building was nice, and you know what.... I remained calm...., my partner who is the calm one .... did not.

It was an entertaining experience, which we do not intend on doing again...

Absolutely appalling! Entrees came out 15 minutes apart from each other. One main came out before the others which ended up being cold by the time the rest came. The “Peking duck” was dry and horrible and bland. Everything else was drowned in soy sauce and was wasn’t nice to eat at all. When we spoke the a manger she went to the kitchen and came out with one of the “Peking duck” rolls off our plates and ate it in front of our faces and said it was fine and nothing was wrong with the food. Another manger came over and they then began to speak Chinese i front of us; pointing in my general direction and then started laughing and then walked off. We revived 50% off our bill at or request and were denied a receipt because “it’s unfair to other customers”. As we were leaving they started taking photos of us and when we asked them to delete the photos they threaten to call the police on us and grabbed our arms saying we can’t leave. One of my friends was checking her phone and a mangers went to grab her phone out her hand which completely out of context. When we’re outside they all said just grab their reggos and call the cops. They then called out don’t come back. Through our our dining experience we were ignored by staff, we asked for new plates after entrees and they asked us why we wanted new plates, like hello they are dirty. We also had to walk to the bar to get our own glasses because we got a jug of coke and table water when we called for a waitress for cups she said just one minute, 10 minutes went by and we still didn’t have our cups so we went and got our own. Safe to say we...