Tina's Noodle Kitchen — Restaurant in Melbourne

I had the Mushroom Chicken noodle soup ($16.80). Altho the noodle serving portion was good, I didn't like the taste of the broth. It tasted weird, MSG salty and not great in the flavour. And was WAAAY TOO HOT! in that sizzling ceramic pot! It's actually pretty dangerous. They have some kind of warning sign about this heat, but it's barely visible, far away on the kitchen window. I wouldn't have seen it until my sister pointed it out. Written in neon yellow, so it's not even legible.

Would much prefer going for Pho or Tonkatsu Pork Ramen. So much tastier. While the shrooms were nice, Chicken wasn't great for eating. It was very cumbersome and difficult to eat. It'd been pummelled into small pieces with a mallet, so there were pieces of meat on many rough, jagged sharp bone bits, which I constantly had to pick out of my mouth. Wouldn't recommend for children, it'd be dangerous for them. I was asked numerous times by waitstaff whether they could take our bowls away, when the bowls were still half full, and I was still eating. They obviously hadn't communicated to each other (skill often lacking in Asian restaurants). It was unprofessional and rude, like they were trying to usher us out. Hate that feeling of being pushed out, to make room for the next customers. Really unethical and creates a bad experience. 😕 When I first sat at the table, and placed my fingers on it, I seriously touched this gunky goo stuff which actually looked and felt like someone's cough flem. It was totally gross! 😬 We got them to wipe it down, but you could imagine, I was really grossed out. The only good thing about lunch was having my sister there. One lunch there was...

Tina's, this restaurant is very famous among the Melbourne foodies and at least 3 out of 5 of my Asian friends been to this place. Tina's serves Sichuan cuisine that means a lot of intense flavors, spiciness, use of garlic and Sichuan pepper. I hate spicy food, but, my friends insisted on trying, and here we are. The only reason I agreed to enter this place because it serves noodles.

My friends and I ordered three noodles dishes; Tender Beef and Tomato, Deep-fried pork with pickles, oxtail, and tomato. For me the preference in this list goes like; tender beef deep fried port oxtail so obviously I had the tender beef and tomato noodles.

First things first, the bowl will be super hot and be cautious around it. I was impressed by the quantity of the food, but then I felt like its just soup. I mean, it was watery. The beef tasted really good, the noodles were ordinary, and the soup was thin, and the tomato taste got monotonous after some time. I had to have some soup from my friends to change the flavor.

The service was ok, and the patrons do most of the part, especially, you have to write down your order, and the waiter will collect it. I didn't find the noodle bowl to be a value for money deal at all. For $15 - $16 I could get a decent hotpot bowl from the Dragon Hotpot nearby which is even more flavorsome. As I said, this restaurant is trendy among the Asian crowd, and I don't understand why there is too much hype around a place which sells average tasting noodle bowl. Many of my friends asked me to revisit, and I always avoided it. Sorry guys maybe you should consider putting your price little lower and...

A Chinese style noodle place (more of Sichuan to be exact). I ordered crispy fried pork with pickled vegetable noodle soup. Great noodle, slippery, chewy, with a nice bite to it. Soup was ok (do be careful as it is scolding hot, even more so when you order the hot and spicy one coated with chilli oil. It's still hot even after 15 minutes), just a hint of sourness and a little salty from the pickled vegetable, but quite refreshing disregarding the floating glubs of oil. The service was a bit different from your normal waitress and cashier. Calling them rude is a bit much in my opinion. It's not as if they are shouting or grumbling at you or slamming your change or the noodle bowl on the table. They just lack the expression which makes a good service in western world such as looking at you in the eye and smilling (they are communicating with each other about the order and seating) or walk and speak slowly and elegantly. I imagine when the place is as packed as sardine in a can with queue line longer than your longest record worm in slitherio, efficiency in serving you would be their topmost priority instead of small subliminal gesture. Price is not THAT high, since you get quite a big portion with plenty of ingredient. All in all, a nice noodle place for cold and wet winter night. You might like it, you might not, but i say try it at least once.

*note: they do use plenty of pungent ingredient and msg so if you're sensitive about stuff like that you might want to check with them first. **note: and expect to share table with other customers especially...