Tungthit Sizzling Steak Springvale — Restaurant in Melbourne

Always wanted to try this place for a long time and I finally visited on Christmas Eve 2023.

Upon entering, I was greeted with festive decor and a warm welcoming atmosphere. However, I soon found out that this was the only good point for the restaurant.

My party of 3 were quickly sat down and given three menus, one special menu, a drinks menu and the regular menu.

After perusing for sometime, we decided to order a salad, a sizzling beef, steak pho and fettucine with steak.

I wanted to order a glass of red as well so I enquired about the house shiraz(18 dollars for a glass). The waiter was not able to describe what the actual brand of the Shiraz was - and when I asked about the flavour profile, he was also unable to describe it. I then asked if I can taste a bit to garner if I want to purchase a glass. To my surprise, they do not offer tastings like every other steak restaurants. Such as shame as that would have been an easy upsell.

We also ordered entree from the special menu and initially wanted to get some salads, but for some reason, all the salads were not available (on Christmas Eve)? We ended up settling for wok fried vegetable with mushroom.

Review of the item as follows:

Steak Pho with Premium Sirlion ($69). Pho was average at best and Steak was heavily under seasoned.

Ranger Valley (400g) Steak ($72). This was probably the best out of all the items ordered. Steak was cooked well, however, once again heavily under seasoned. The sauce that comes with this does not really compliment well as it was tasteless

Fettucine with Steak ($29). Both items were sadly very under seasoned as well. We had to season almost all the items ordered ourselves.

During our meal, due to the lack of flavour, we had to ask for additional table salt and pepper. The waiter acknowledged it but never bought out the seasoning - even though there were only 4 tables occupied. In the end, we had to go to the sauce station to get it ourselves.

When we paid, I suggested to the cashier (Lady with short hair and glasses) that they should offer tastings just like other restaurants. Given the price point of the items, most people would want to pair a glass of wine. However, she straight away said 'no, we don't do that here'

Overall, even thought the decor and atmosphere was welcoming, it is let down by mediocre service and more appalling food. We spent a total of $221.31 here (including one cocktail) and while we really wanted to like this place, we just can't bring ourselves to return for a second try.

If you are in the mood for a good steak, there are far better options elsewhere that offer better service and well...

Had dinner here with some friends over the weekend and the food was excellent. I first noticed Tungthit via its viral posts on instagram but never bothered to try because I thought it was all viral hype but bit the bullet looking at reviews and photos here and boy am I glad I did. The food is was excellent. We had the tomahawk set for 3 to 4 people.

Tiger bread with pate was good. The bread was crisp on the outside and very soft and fluffy on the inside. The pate was good, not grainy and tasted well balanced with the black pepper corns.

Beef salad was excellent with rare beef slices on top of a well balanced citrusy salad that had good texture and flavours. It is a good appetiser as it opens up your appetite.

Fried rice with bone marrow was a highlight for me. The dish is brought out with the whole marrow bone and the waiter will scrape out the marrow and mix in with spring onions, coriander and crispy chilli. Kimchi was provided on the side to break up the oiliness of the marrow. Rice fried perfectly with each grain separated but the flavour of the rice and marrow just worked so well together with the other condiments. It was a good combination of flavours.

Tomahawk steak was excellent when it came out. It came out rare but the waitress cooked it to medium rare for us as it came out on a giant sizzling plate with eggs, roast potatoes and chimichurri sauce. The chimichurri sauce really complemented the meat very well, bringing a little heat, complexity and freshness to each bite. If there are still slices of meat after the initial serve, I will highly recommend to take them off the sizzling plate or at least put them on top of the tomahawk bone so they don’t keep cooking on top of the hot plate. The meat had a good beef flavour and marbling, leading to a good mouth feel.

Beef Wellington was disappointing. We asked for medium but it came much closer to well done. Part of the problem could be that the Wellington came at more or less the same time as the tomahawk so while the steak was being prepared, the Wellington was just sitting there, thus further cooking the meat in the Wellington. It came with a thick black pepper sauce that I felt did not complement the Wellington. A simple gravy or jus would have been better IMHO.

Banh mi dessert was just OK for me. Coconut flesh pieces and ice cream sandwiched by banh mi bread. Missing some complexity and textures for my liking.

It was a very pricey meal but you do get quality dishes that are cooked well. I would come back for celebrations because I did enjoy the experience, it’s just not a place that I’d come back for casual meals due to...

I'm back here after 1.5 year and have to say the food & price is really dramatically changed.

I still have old photos when first tried out in 2021 and 2nd visit in 2022 (this was the best experience overall). Price changed about 30% compared in 2022 but not really justified the quality of the food given.

Back then roasted veggies (asparagus, mushroom & sprinkle of cheese) was so good & moisture & well-seasoned. Unlike now, they changed to potato and mushroom only but it was burnt & dried

The salad was good but would be nicer if they know how to cut, shred the veggies properly so that it looks consistent rather than a mess of salad mix, few slides of carrots but the salad dressing was good so acceptable to me.

The main dish was sizzling steak but felt like it was undercooked & I'm not sure if it was blood/ protein juice but totally looked different compared to 2021 & 2022 where the steak was nicely cooked and the juice coming out nicely during the sizzling. I'm not sure that I have the professions on these but to myself it signals of cooking from "frozen meat" rather than room temperature/ fully unfreeze meat.

You could straightly tell from the picture that the egg was undercooked and poorly controled the heat of sizzle where the egg was burnt underneath but white yolks still not yet cooked, like fluids even after 10-15mins where it mixed so well with the blood/ juice coming out from the steak

More importantly, no sauce was given/ no seasoning on the steak as well, not sure if they changed it but to what I remembered there was always a specialty sauce or mustard sauce. It made it a really boring experience & filled with disappointment

The pate was okay, really enjoyed the crisp bread

We ordered the bone marrow fried rice but not tasted any bone marrow in it beside of the sate, kimchi & lots of cilantro flavours

We also order the bolognese spaghetti but the kitchen was unable to make it, i think that they just forgot our order given that was only us and one more table. It was acceptable as one of the staff came out & apologized for it.

Overall, really disappointed with the change in quality especially back then they also give the garlic butter & garlic in separate or spead on the steak. Now like they throw cilantro in all the dishes and it was so poorly chopped & unequally small sprinkle of salt over the steak. That's all I have but will come back once more to see if there's any difference/ improvise the dishes otherwise I'll go to...