Zero Mode — Restaurant in Melbourne

✨ UPDATED REVIEW 30/6/24 ✨ ✨ Truffle Season @ Zero Mode ✨

Enhance your brunch or dinner experience at Zero Mode with their new seasonal truffle menu, featuring three exquisite dishes: available in sando, spaghetti, and steak don.

We had: 🍝 Truffle Carbonara $38 🍄‍🟫 Wagyu Truffle Steak Don $58 🦀 Spicy Spanner Crab Spaghetti Neo $38 🍵 Iced Matcha $9.90 🍓 Strawberry Freeze $9.90 🌍 Earth $9.90

EVERY 👏 SINGLE 👏 DISH 👏 WAS 👏 ON 👏 POINT 🤩

Both truffle dishes feature freshly grated truffles at your table. The Wagyu had a delicious chargrilled aroma and crispy exterior, complemented by tender meat and a sweet and savory peppery sauce that enhances the flavor without overpowering it. The rice serves to balance out the richness of the meat’s flavor.

Alternatively, the Carbonara featured a creamy sauce enriched with truffle shavings, offering a more straightforward flavor profile.

From the regular menu, the Spicy Spanner Crab Spaghetti did not disappoint. Spaghetti was cooked al dente with flavourful crab bisque with bouncy prawns.

Old review: For $69pp you can enjoy a lovely set menu including 4 entrees, a main, salad and dessert.

Add another $40pp to upgrade to 2hrs of bottomless drinks with 14 different cocktails, beer, wine or non-alcoholic drinks.

Highly recommend going with the 14 days dry aged duck for the main. It was exceptionally meaty and juicy, with a slight chew and a thick fatty layer underneath crisp skin. Very flavoursome and plump duck!

✨ Entree notes ✨ 🦆 Duck Sando A hearty meatball that requires bit of effort to cut through. Topped on shokupan seasoned with hoisin mayo, kewpie and fennel.

🦞 Lobster Prawn Toast Nice and loaded with lobster/prawn on a toasty brioche flavoured with yuzu mayo and chives.

🥒 Charred Cucumber Surprisingly my favourite of the lot, the charring added aroma and the seed cracker was crunchy with nutty tones. The cream cheese coconut yoghurt complemented so well.

🐮 Wagyu Intercostal Charred to some crispy edging bringing out beefy flavour, very tender. The puree helped bring down the flavour and balance it out.

Loved the dessert, cake was fluffy with light and airy Thai Milk tea cream, not too sweet. Dinosaur pudding wears a I ❤️ U tee, too cute!! 🦖...

Google Review

Several frustrating points to mention:

There’s a sign at the entrance instructing you to wait outside to be seated, yet no one comes to assist you. We stood there for quite a while before someone finally asked if we needed help.

Once inside, the wait for food was unbearably long. We waited 30 minutes for our main courses. By the time they arrived, we had nearly finished our drinks. I thought the wait would be worth it if the food was good, but the fries came out cold. Spending over fifty dollars on cold fries was very disappointing.

The real letdown was the wagyu truffle fried rice, which was the main reason we came. The black pepper sauce and fried garlic completely overpowered any truffle flavor, making it impossible to taste the truffle at all. The wagyu beef was tough and chewy, lacking any distinct flavor, and not even as good as the beef I can buy at Coles. Additionally, the wagyu beef I saw on social media was sliced like steak strips, but what we got was more like beef bits, resembling leftovers. The fried rice itself didn't have the separate, fluffy grains you'd expect; instead, it was more like a clump of rice drenched in black pepper sauce.

I initially thought this restaurant specialized in Western cuisine, but a quick look on Google revealed it’s labeled as fusion. While fusion can be innovative, this dish was just a confusing mix that wasted the unique flavor of truffle.

To end on a positive note, the desserts were decent. The pudding beside the milk tea cake and the matcha bear were nice.

I’m left wondering if they paid for positive reviews on social media. Driving an hour for this meal left me thoroughly...

Saw this place all over social media, the teddy bear drinks looked super cute and i wanted to try one myself.

I had a couple dietary requirements and the waitress got completely flustered and was super unhelpful. instead of going straight away to ask the kitchen, she immediately shut me down and said no they can't change anything to accomadate.

for reference i asked for a iced chocolate with the teddy pannacotta with skim milk, which she said no i couldnt have that and for food i asked to add salmon to a veggie poke bowl (which was the only real no spicy one, that had veggies in it) which she also said no to.

after seeing that i was unhappy and there was nothing else i really wanted, she then went to ask the kitchen if it was ok to which they said they could make what i wanted just with an extra cost (no issues, idm paying the extra). then again she asked what drink i wanted, my friend had ordered a soy hot chocolate, so i don't know why it was such an issue that they could make that but not a skim iced chocolate? (which was the main reason i wanted to come) she then went and asked the barista if they could make it skim to which they said they could.

overall the service left a bad taste, and is the only reason this review doesn't get a higher rating. i don't know why she made such a big deal to accomadate my requirements (which were quite minor ones). you should be more welcoming to allow changes that you are able to do and not make people feel bad for things they can/can't eat. there were also WAY too many spicy dishes.

Besides that the food and drinks were delicious, and looked amazing! i would come back but definitely ask for someone else...