Blooming Garden — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

Hmmmm... I'm not sure how this place has such high reviews. Perhaps the people coming here are easy to please. Usually I am pleased with places I go to. My gal went entirely by the Google reviews and thought we should give it a try. I don't usually like restaurants where I cook my own choices of food but it's something different and hell I've eaten a shish kebab in Lifou Island knowing it had snails on it and loved it the poor couple that followed me got a shock while talking to me with a mouthful of what they thought was beef. So yeah let's try something different.

THE GOOD. Yeah OK the flavours in the spicy chicken for BBQ and the hot fried chicken are pretty nice. The beef was reasonable and so was the flavoured porks. The salads again reasonable.

THE NOT GOOD. When we walk in the staff sit us and start the cooker and Walkaway. Not once did they ask if we'd eaten Korean BBQ before or even offer us a drink to start considering those drinks make them extra money that little extra bit of service makes a difference and since we had not done this style of eating before it would have been nice to been told a few things. The only thing we got told was that we had to wear gloves to serve but the few people on the table next door conveniently kept forgetting and were having a lovely loud conversation about Covid. Irony.

Saying the food is reasonable was being generous. Yes the flavour is there but I've tasted better flavours in AYAM cooking sauces and I don't pay that much for that.

The atmosphere was kind of disappointing. The pictures you see posted above are definitely during the start of service and there is little in the way of maintaining that look throughout. The hot food was not very hot in fact that whole section was only good when a fresh batch came out. The Kimchi tasted bottled but I just sampled all the salads to see what I thought. Again reasonable but not worth the effort of going back for something I kind of liked.

The coffee... Omg I never knew you could get instant coffee in a packet with sugar and powdered milk all in one. For instant it was drinkable but I am a coffee lover so yeah Nah mate.

Overall the bad definitely made the good bits seem mediocre... If the service at the start had have been better maybe this would have been an overall better experience.

The final indignation is the fact that the $100 price got raised by a surcharge for using EFTPOS. Seriously?

I definitely won't be going again and to be honest it has put me off ever going to Korean BBQ or Korean in general and as my other reviews show I definitely enjoy food but this was a major...

My fiance and I were visiting Newcastle for my dads wedding and I chose our date night for the night before. I've always wanted to try korean BBQ and I picked the right place as my fiance was thrilled at my choice as it was "an experience" rather than a sit down, get served type of deal....Wow!!! This was an experience! From walking in, being introduced by the magnificent staff on how to select our meats, side dishes and pre cooked meals, as well as showing us the korean vodka menu and showing us the options. We both sat in awe as i elected to pick our first course of meats from the all you can eat selection 🙂 we started cooking and couldn't pick our jaws up from the floor at the delicious selections. Wow wow wow!! We were blown away. Drinking and eating. Chatting to other people at the table next to us. Blown away completely by the experience. It was mind blowing.... delicious... the staff were incredible and so helpful explaining the korean bbq plate and how to cook the ingredients in front of us on the hot plate, and providing us fresh bbq plates as soon as there was a black char from the marinades.... this is not a meal but a shared love of food, which we certainly felt our love, while enjoying AMAZING food! I loved the spicy, fermented bean paste while my partner stuck to the mild, but we left feeling almost HIGH from the experience 🙂 I guess it was the korean vodka shots as well 😄 I can't recommend this...

Attended the Blooming Garden for a dinner with my wife and found the restaurant to be well presented. Staff were pleasant and the customer service was good. Unfortunately the dining room was uncomfortably cold during the winter months. It was probably colder inside the restaurant than it was outside on this night. The menu looked promising, with the choice difficult but in the end, I chose the Lamb Shoulder and my wife chose the King Prawns. Both dishes were well presented. The prawn dish only came out with three king prawns which for the price for the menu, I felt was a little underwhelming. My lamb shoulder was dry and could have used a bit more sauce to accompany it. The dryness of the lamb made it hard to swallow.

I think the menu has potential and I can see they are promoting an asian feel to Australian dishes. Unfortunately, the asian influence doesn't come through on the plate.

Looking at the older reviews, they seem to be from a lot of asian people with only the one review. Call me skeptical but it could be that the owners of the restaurant could be writing these reviews because their experiences were not...