Long Chim — Restaurant in Perth

Main dishes: ordered the fish curry, pork stir-fry, banana salad and jasmine rice to share. It came in good time all at once. The banana salad was quite hodgepodge with what seemed to be a mix of all kinds of vegetables, prawns and other bits covered in a desert-sweet dressing with clumps of coconut cream. Fortunately the sweetness managed to balance out the fish stew which was extremely salty. The pork stir-fry was possibly the best of the mains with a pleasing mix of textures and a spicy kick. The significant oiliness of the pork dish meant a generous serving of rice was required to balance it out however, so not something to order if you’re like one of us and not a fan of oil laden foods.

Desert: —Thai tea ie cream: can’t fault this desert- absolutely delicious and plated beautifully. The subtle tea flavour of the ice cream melted perfectly into the sweet coconut cream base and the pistachio and konjac pieces added the textured depth that ice cream deserts often lack. —Taro pudding: arrived as two pieces of pudding surrounded by dried shallot chips. This one had great potential but didn’t quite deliver for us. A pet peeve we both have is the serving of a pudding or cake-based desert without ice cream or other such sauce to add moisture and contrast. The pudding itself was indeed warm, sweet and delightful but could only be optimally enjoyed by pairing it with the thai tea ice cream that we had also ordered. The addition of the shallots to the pudding was divisive with one of us feeling they overpowered the taste of the Taro and the other finding them a pleasing addition. All in all a bit of a flat dish that could be lifted greatly with the addition of some ice cream and potentially side-dishing of the shallots.

Service: all the service staff we met were lovely and attentive. Everything came in good time and with a smile. Oddly though, after finishing desert, and being at our table for an hour and twenty minutes, the server told us our table was needed for the next booking in 5minutes. We were still finishing our drinks (two glasses of beer) but were asked to pay the bill and leave. We asked if we could sit up near the bar to finish the drinks but when we got there we were told to move on again as the bar area was also booked out. The server tried to find us somewhere in the restaurant or out the back of the venue that we could have stayed to finish but as everywhere had been reserved we ended up standing awkwardly by the entrance trying to down our drinks quickly. A very strange experience.

Overall while we enjoyed the atmosphere of the venue very much and found the service staff to be lovely, the food itself didn’t do much to impress (bar the delicious thai tea ice cream) and the odd feeling of being shunted out of the venue towards the end of the meal left a bad taste.

—6/10 spoons, wouldn’t go back but wouldn’t run...

Visited on a Saturday evening without a booking and got a table near the reception/bar area, the place was packed but all the staff were awesome - in particular the two front of house staff! They were rushed off their feet but were still super cheerful and friendly and all around memorable as delivering some of the best service I've ever seen. We tried the Maa Long Chim $65 tasting menu, and it was 100% worth it! Each dish is delicious, and you definitely won't leave hungry - we ended up with leftovers and the staff were kind enough to pack it up into takeaway boxes with a cute takeaway bag, and even packed us a fresh box of rice to go with it! I was skeptical about the stirfried watercress and almost didn't get the tasting menu because it sounded like a boring option to include, but it was surprisingly delicious! Super crispy and a very delicious sauce, like a good Chinese stirfry. As for the other dishes; The cumin beef skewers had a tasty flavour and was mostly quite tender, but a few of the pieces were unchewably tough. The spicy pork with rice cakes (apparently the spiciest item on the menu) was full of flavour and went perfectly with the lettuce cups, but was borderline too spicy and the spice overpowered the flavour. The crunchy prawns were so good! Just a big bowl of little prawns deep fried whole, and quite a bit of deep fried shell bits without prawns. Great to snack on while you wait for the other dishes to come out. Pineapple pork curry was super tasty, would definitely recommend. It was similar to the pineapple curry at Apple Daily, and is another dish I was skeptical about but turned out to be delicious. Deep fried fish was one of the highlights of the dinner, perfectly crispy and tender fish with a very delicious sweet and tangy and savoury sauce that goes amazingly with rice. It's a shame that this dish came with probably the smallest serving size of the tasting menu, you only get 3 chunks of that perfectly cooked fish. Grilled lamb ribs were tender and fatty and very good, but not amazing. They tasted like they had been stewed, not grilled, and the sauce was definitely good but lacked a wow factor so I would skip this if I were ordering a la carte. All the entrees and some of the mains came with a large amount of raw red onion on top, which was a bit strange but good. Coconut cake for dessert came in 2 very small pieces, but at this point we were already way too full. The coconut cake tasted absolutely delicious, but I wasn't a fan of the long strands of coconut running through the soft and squishy coconut cake. The texture was just a bit of a weird combination, like the stringy bit of a green bean that someone forgot to remove.

Overall, super tasty dishes and amazing staff, Long Chim is...

Mediocre experience here tonight. I’m genuinely shocked at how far this place has fallen. My partner and I dined here for an early Valentine’s dinner, hoping to relive the magic of our visit three years ago. Instead, we got a front-row seat to chaos, indifference, and some of the most uninspired food I’ve had in years.

Let’s start with the basics: They couldn’t make a mocktail with the simplest ingredients. Then, they ran out of duck—a main dish—because apparently, planning ahead is optional. It became clear that because we had a later reservation (8:45 pm), the staff had already mentally clocked out.

The starters were an insult. Spring rolls with all the charm of supermarket frozen section tasting. The only hero on that plate? The coriander—because the kitchen clearly couldn’t save itself.

For mains, my partner’s barramundi was just edible, while my chicken curry was a tragedy: barely warm, flavourless, and served with cold rice. When I politely raised the issue, the server’s disinterest could have won an Oscar. I guess customer satisfaction isn’t part of their job description.

But wait, it gets worse. Our dirty plates stayed on the table for the rest of the meal, untouched—even after I flagged someone down for a dessert menu. By then, it was clear: they didn’t care if we ordered dessert or walked out the door. Getting the bill was like pulling teeth. Honestly, I’ve seen more enthusiasm from vending machines. My partner mentioned this to the reception lady when we finally had her attention to pay.

Then came the final insult: $148 for the privilege of this disaster. I wouldn’t be so insulted if they’d just handed me a Wagamama takeaway and called it a night—it would’ve tasted better, cost less, and come with more dignity.

To management: You’ve let something special rot into something embarrassing. The food? A shadow of what it once was. The service? Non-existent. The atmosphere? Dead on arrival. You’re charging premium prices for a third-rate experience, and it’s obvious no one here cares.

I didn’t come to be impressed—I came for a good meal. You failed at both. And trust me, I won’t be making this...