Tokyo Tina — Restaurant in Melbourne

👍🏻 what you should order: smoked duck bimbimbap, karaage chicken, all of their cocktails Overall score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Tokyo Tina is the type of place that you would go for a meal with your friends if you would like to indulge in asian fusion. Do not come here if you are looking for traditional Asian food - Tokyo Tina prides itself in serving a wide range of Asian dishes with a slight twist.

After a few visits, I’ve come to realise that if you order the right dishes, you are guaranteed to have a good time. Some of my favourite dishes are: The smoked duck bimbimbap: do not pour all the chilli sauce if you don’t enjoy spicy food. We usually pour about half and it’s sufficient. Really enjoy the smoked duck. Karaage chicken: who doesn’t enjoy crispy chicken alongside kewpie? This is a classic favourite which went well with their cocktails! Eggplant chips - not as crispy and rich as the ones I had at some Sichuan restaurants, but the honey coat works well. The yakitori sticks were delicious - not the best we’ve had, but perfectly charred and full of flavour Tokyo Tina also had a good selection of sashimi dishes. We wiped the kingfish sashimi and yellow fish tuna clean!!

The dishes that we found to be less appetising were the pork belly bao - the pork belly meat was a bit dry and portions were small. The pork hock was also quite tough and hard to cut through. The pork and kimchi gyoza also didn’t work as well - something about the pork meat tasting slightly odd.

Having said that, after 2 visits, we now order our favourite dishes and really enjoy our time at Tokyo Tina. The drink selections are especially good - I haven’t had a cocktail I didn’t enjoy at Tokyo Tina. The great music playlist and top notch service are also huge pluses - it’s no wonder the restaurant is consistently crowded! Taste: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Ambience: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Presentation: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Price:...

ORDERED: Tokyo Private Functions ($85.00pp) 🥒  Pickled cucumber with togarashi 🍃  Nori Crisp and yellowfin tuna 🥚 Devilled egg, with spanner crab, avocado, and wasabi mousse

🥪 Prawn Katsu Bun 🐟 Kingfish Sashimi with yuzukosho dressing and umeboshi

🦆 Umeboshi glazed duck breast with honey mustard

🐑  Whole roasted lamb shoulder with Ssam, Ginger spring onion relish and kimchi 🥔  Potato salad with bonito, tobiko and bottarga 🍚  Steamed koshihikari rice with furikake crumb

🍪 Dorayaki with chocolate cream, koji caramel and roasted peanuts

REVIEW: The food at Tokyo Tina was awesome. Delicious combination and use of textures and flavours with a very modern take. I was really pleased, and it seems like their quality is consistent since I also enjoyed their food pre-covid.

The one (big) thing that made it lose 1 star is the inconsistent portioning of the food. Considering Tokyo Tina knew the number of people, I would've had a much better experience if they consistently portioned the food with consideration of their own table seating arrangements. For instance, we received 8 Kingfish Sashimi between 5 people, and 8 pieces of duck between 5 people as well. You'd think maybe they thought there were only 4 people in our section. But no, the kitchen were able to plate enough entrees for 1 each, and 5 Prawn Katsu buns to be evenly split between us. Incredibly inconveniently inconsistent.

The great thing about the function room was that it was able to be converted into a karaoke area! Super convenient to not move our whole party of 20. The waitstaff were also nice enough to ensure we continuously had water. We sung our hearts out, but one of the two mics were faulty and kept turning off. Even when we had the mic replaced and fixed, it still kept switching off after every couple of seconds. Not good.

Overall, great food experience with room for...

WORST EXPERIENCE IN RECENT HISTORY.

Extremely unprofessional, the epitome of poor customer service and a joke of an establishment. An absolute disgrace to the hospitality industry especially given the current COVID-19 climate.

I had booked the Bingo Academy bottomless brunch ($69pp) party of four for Saturday 2/1/21 at noon two weeks prior. I was traveling an hour to Chapel St, Windsor, and was already on my way to Tokyo Tina for the midday booking when to my surprise I received a call at 11:22am Sat 2/1/21 from Tokyo Tina (see screenshot) telling me that the Bingo Academy bottomless brunch noon booking was cancelled/not going ahead. Any rationale human being who had planned their day around this booking would naturally be irate.

The justification as to why the Bingo Academy bottomless brunch was cancelled was “there are too few bookings for today because it’s New Years”…Surely you knew this beforehand? Why even offer this service at this time of year when you know these are the circumstances?

As for the disgustingly late notice (38 minutes before my booking!!!) the reason provided was, “we have tried to call you previously but wasn’t able to leave a voicemail.” This is incorrect and a blatant lie. I have not received any calls from Tokyo Tina since I booked on 20/12/20. I would still receive the missed call notification if there was a call attempt even if my voicemail system is not working (FYI, it is).

It is quite ironic how Tokyo Tina requires a 24hr cancellation notice ($20pp fee) and they cannot honor this themselves, hypocrites. Should I get $20pp from Tokyo Tina for wasting my time?

This experience and interaction with Tokyo Tina staff was very disappointing. Do not waste your time considering this place or booking for the Bingo Academy bottomless brunch package as they simply cannot guarantee...