Yan Melbourne — Restaurant in Melbourne

Really really bad dining experience tonight. Ordered the prawns and oysters as the starters and then we had our mains. And when we were having the mains, which were pretty bland, I feel severe pain in my stomach and I had to go to the bathroom and stayed there for quite a while. When I told this to the manager, he promised there's nothing wrong with their ingredients and food poisoning symptoms will only occur after at least 2 hours according to "science". But it's been more than 6.5 hours since I had my lunch and I was feeling absolutely fine until I was having the bland beef rib. If everything was fully cooked as they promised, then it can only be the oyster which could possibly carry what's called the Diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) toxins. It is actually pretty common to find this virus in oysters after my research and they take as short as 30min to affect the person, which sounds about right in my case. I couldn't even finish the rest of the meal since I just lost the appetite after I came back from the bathroom. I'm pretty sure if my lunch pizza was unclean, they would have reacted before this meal and my friend who had the pizza with me would have felt the symptoms too, which he didn't. So yeah, do not recommend.

Update after owner's response: Yes you did offer to call me an ambulance, which I guess I appreciated. But symptoms of DSP can just be diarrhea. The poisoning itself is nowhere near life-threatening, but my whole evening was ruined. I guess you will only take some responsibility if I end up in a hospital bed and were unable to survive the night. To answer your other questions: I don't have seafood allergies and I grew up next to the sea and had every type of seafood there is and never had any issues before. I was suspecting it was the prawn when I was still in the restaurant because I ate parts of the prawn head. It looked disgusting but I thought it might still be safe to consume. I later left and restaurant and did some research and found this DSP toxin. That's why I changed my mind because the oyster is the only thing not fully cooked as you said. My further research told me that DSP toxin cannot be destroyed through cooking or freezing. So whatever you did with the oysters, it does not help with getting rid of DSP. It had more to do with where you got the oysters from. Do your suppliers have their oysters regularly checked for all the seaborne toxins? Do they have reports to back that up? There were several incidents of DSP in Australia throughout the years but since they are not really life-threatening, they got very little traction. As for the reaction time, most sources do say usually 30min. So does that mean even if it's 29min 59sec that I had the reaction, it cannot be because of DSP? That's very scientific of you guys. Outlier data always exits in science. I'm not allergic to dairy products either. And the friend who had the pizza with me was absolutely fine throughout yesterday as well. Pretty sure I would have died a long time ago if I'm allergic to dairy stuff since I'm eating them basically every day since I was a child. I have notified the city of Stonnington and we'll see...

ORDERED: 🦪 Freshly shucked pacific oyster natural + lemon ($6.00) 🦪 Freshly shucked pacific oyster with smoked buttermilk, chilli oil ($7.00)

🦪 Hokkaido scallop, aromatic curried bisque, apple, crisps ($29.00) 🍄 King brown mushroom, cauliflower cream, shichimi togarashi ($22.00) 🦑 Fried squid, black pepper, cucumber, curry leaf ($28.00)

🍖 Beef short ribs, sauteed kale, sansho pepper ($52.00) 🍚 Koshikari rice, olives, pickled mustard leaves ($8.00)

I spent $102.52 on my portion here, which included a mocktail.

REVIEW: ❤ Our favourite was the fried squid! It was lightly coated and even though it was fried - you could still enjoy magical tenderness of the squid. Cooked with incredible skill, it was accompanied by a umami sauce that left a memorable and favourable impression. I would recommend this dish at Yan!! 💝

➖ The oysters were fresh with its plumpness and sweetness, but the natural version was preferred. The buttermilk was overwhelming and heavy (whereas I find refreshing tends to be a more enjoyable partner) - probably because the chilli oil wasn't strong enough to cut through the creamy buttermilk! 🌶⬆🤞

❌ Least favourite for me was the Koshikari rice. Although the portion was extremely generous (I reckon this bowl could easily feed a town of 3 people), the inclusion of the pickled mustard leaves left me scratching my head. 🤔 It's a fusion I hadn't seen before, but the funky and sour tones from the pickled mustard leaves made me think of stale rice. I know stale rice would NOT be the case in a professional establishment, but it took a lot of enjoyment out of it, for me 😢.

👨‍🦱 Service from the waiters on a Saturday lunch were very professional, warm and friendly. Even though it was a little quiet, drinks and food came out at reasonable times, and empty plates were cleared away pretty speedily. They were spot on with their portion size recommendations (e.g. no dessert for us - but we were okay with that!). Atmosphere is very nice, where it's suitable to take people to celebrate a special occasion or have a really...

I came from interstate and planned to celebrate my birthday in Yan with my friends today. But to be honest, it will only be a one-time event for me here. Maybe I hold very high expectations before this dinner…

For the service, I would say I felt a little bit rushed, although the girl who served us was lovely. Maybe the business wants to boost the table turnover rate,between the time when we decided on the foods and drinks, the waitress came at least twice in 5 minutes. I personally don't feel good about that experience, because from our actions, I believe that would show we are still deciding what food and drink we want.

After we ordered the drinks, there was a missed order in between. That is okay for us.

Food taste or seasoning was good. But the most interesting thing that happened at this dinner was all the food we ordered was barely hot… (we ordered short rib/ pork/ corn/ side rice) we actually hadn't waited and started to eat food as soon as the food came up to the table. But all the food gets cold very quickly… we felt like eating cold salad at the end… The reason why to said the experience was interesting, is because we ordered the dessert at the end. The donut was the hottest dish in the whole dinner in comparison to all the other main dishes. In the beginning, we thought maybe because of the weather getting warmer they intentionally prepared those main in that temperature. During the meal, the waitress came to clean the empty dishes as soon as we finished, which is understandable, it happened 5 times, but none of the waitresses asked how was everything at all, resulting in us actually can't giving any feedback back or asking anything.

When I paid the bill and gave the dining feedback the answer was that: it does not usually happen… you can tell us… next time you can… None apologize at all. Only questioning. That surprised me.

I would say here have a very good taste of seasoning for each dish, but still have many things that need to improve to match the...