This used to be M's and his parent's go to for Japanese before he met me. He took me here a couple of times for dates and I was never particularly impressed. But of it is the dankness of the place; it is very dimly lit but this combined with the rundowness of the decor (e.g. ripped seats) makes for a rather depressing ambiance. The food is in a similar vein to Izakaya Hachibeh (see below) but Hachibeh does it better. The menu is very extensive and the prices are OK but there are certainly cheaper and better Japanese places in town. The sashimi here has always been pretty fresh but again there is definitely better elsewhere; the udon is again OK but the tempura dipped in the soup made it a bit unpleasant for me personally and the broth definitely needed a stronger dashi flavour. This place isn't bad, it's just been left a bit behind but better and newer places.
Mr Burger
We used to absolutely love Mr Burger. The burgers were fantastic, a thick lovely nicely cooked, charry and flavoursome patty with plenty of onions, American cheese and BBQ sauce. The chips were also amazing, super crispy on the outside, soft and pluffy on the inside and plenty of chicken salt. Prices were also good and the staff very friendly. Celebs came here, but that odd looking red headed guy from It's a Date. Not sure if the celebs still come here but we've certainly stopped. Ever since the chain expanded, quality has significantly deteriorated. We've tried a few of the outlets and they're all pretty subpar now. The patties are now thin and with a rubbery texture, no chariness more like braised and soggy. The chips were still nice but the now very very mediocre burgers kinda kill the enjoyment.
Ba'get
This chain is kinda a safe, whitey place to get a banh mi. They do a decent banh mi, certainly not as authentic or tasty as some of those you get from Vietnamese bakeries but it'll do in a pinch in the CBD. Prices are fairly reasonable, but again not as good as in the aforementioned bakeries. I do like the complimentary pandan tea they have on offer inside the shop. However, the best reason to go to Ba'get are the litle cassava cakes they sell. These are DELICIOUS—chewy, coconutty and not too sweet—and well worth going into a Ba'get for.
Little Lamb
There are a few of these scattered around Melbourne but I've only been to the one in the CBD. Came here with a friend on a cold night, perfect for hot pot. Waited a short while before being shown to our table, though; this place is very popular with international students and is thus generally very busy. Little Lamb serves all you can eat hotpot for around $25-30 per person. The ingredients they use are perfectly good for hotpot and has enough of mostly everything you'd want to throw in without having a huge variety. It's a buffet so you help yourself to ingredients. The buffet area is very cramped though so it doesn't exactly make it the best experience but people keep coming back nonetheless. All in all not a bad choice for hotpot.
Izakaya Hachibeh
This is usually our choice when we want a Japanese izakaya style place. The menu here is huge so you might have trouble selecting but everything we've ever had here has been fresh and tasty. The sashimi is fresh and good here, as are the gigantic katsu curry dons (a favourite of ours). As you should expect from an izakaya (with the notable exception of the overpriced Izakaya Den), the prices are very very reasonable. The service is also very friendly and they are happy to accommodate your requests. The decor isn't amazing (again, this is an izakaya not a super upmarket establishment) but certainly better than Chuji's,
David's
Came here for yum cha after the recommendation from a good friend of ours. David's is sorta tucked away in a small street off Chapel St. It's not too difficult to find, though, as there are signs on the main street pointing you the way. When you arrive, you immediately realise that David's is quite different to your average Chinese restaurant. The decor is quite Westernised and well presented. The place is also staffed by young quite attractive Asian females who offer friendly but fast service. David's yum cha is I guess what you could describe as an all you can east. For something like $35-40 you can have as much dumplings etc as you want, both sweet and savoury. Unfortunately the food itself wasn't very good so I wasn't inclined to ask for very much. There were a lot of dumplings but they were just OK and some of the stuff I actually found surprisingly greasy. There weren't any of my favourite yum cha offerings like lo mai gai or Malay cake. It kind of felt like mediocre dumpling after mediocre dumpling, followed by sweet (e.g. chocolate) dumplings for dessert.
Donwoori
This Korean BBQ place is situated near the QV Markets on Victoria St, very close to Wooga which I believe is owned by the same people. Unlike at Wooga, Donwoori doesn't have an advertised phone number so you can't book but even though it's a pretty small restaurant, it's generally not too difficult to get a table on most nights. They are also very accommodating with pushing tables together if you have a bigger party. The service is friendly as is the manager who likes to talk and shake the hands of the customers. The banchan here is unlimited and DELICIOUS. If I could have some of that kimchi everyday I would be more than content. The menu is very very similar to that of Wooga's with very good vaue BBQ set menus and some other dishes. The food is delicious; the meat is of a good quality and I love the stews/soups and the drinks are very reasonably priced.
Movida
Movida due to its reputation around town and the tininess of the restaurant, is a place you generally have to book well in advance for. If you don't manage to secure a table, you can always try your luck walking in and often they can seat you at the bar. The food here is very good, I remember it being for some reason marginally better than Aqui's and usually has a slightly different menu. The bread they serve here, which I've heard before is housemade, is excellent. You have to pay something like $1 pp for it but it all goes to charity. The beef tartare here is a must try; super flavoursome and moreish while being a very generous portion for the price. Unfortunately when we came here my friend T and I got some pretty bad service, mostly just being ignored throughout the evening by wait staff while they fawned over other tables
Movida Aqui
While Movida Aqui in some ways is quite a contrast to the original Movida. For starters, Aqui is a lot bigger and brightly lit than Movida. The expanded size means that bookings here are much easier to acquire. That said, especially for a weekend, you still generally have to book a couple of days in advance. The menu is pretty similar but as previously mentioned there are some differences. I don't think I've ever seen the tartare on the menu at Aqui but from what I recall the menus are a similar length. Get the pulpo (octopus) if you ever see it here, sometimes on the proper menu and sometimes as a special, as it's delicious and well, octopus is just one of the best (and most underrated) seafoods isn't it? The Jamon Iberico is great (I think they only do paletilla, the 'inferior' but still ridiculously delicious front leg, here though) and it is one of the few places in Australia where they hand slice it; many other places (incorrectly) use a machine. To reiterate what I said above, the food here is perhaps a slight notch below that of Movida original but it is still very very good. The service, however, is much better and this combined with the ease of booking is why I much more often go to Aqui than the original.
Chez Olivier
Since PM24, much to our devastation, closed down not too long ago we've never found a French restaurant which really comes close to what PM24 offered up. Chez Olivier isn't terrible, definitely something more in the classic French bistro style than the upmarket feel of PM24. However, Chez Olivier charge about the same prices. The portions also aren't as generous as those at PM and the food generally is not as good. On the occasion that I came I go a mid-cuit de thon (seared tuna) and a steak. The tuna was pretty tasty and well cooked while the steak I got was very overcooked. I asked for à point (medium rare) but got well done; I didn't send it back though because in all honestly I felt bad for the waiters who were lovely and I just generally couldn't be arsed. T much better luck with his main of a cassoulet though, which was rich and had a great depth of flavour, just how a cassoulet should be.
Maedaya
Maedaya is definitely one of the most popular restaurants in Melbourne, with something like thousands of ratings on Urbanspoon. We came here early to avoid the crowds as they don't take bookings. However, we couldn't really see what the fuss was about. The menu is very extensive—you order on ipads and they use the same ordering interface as Sushi Hotaru—and the prices are pretty decent, but the quality of the food left us a little wanting. The sashimi salad we had was quite frankly pretty terrible with a lacklustre and overly acidic dressing over some not very fresh sashimi and a mountain of mesclun mix. Their famous yakitori is definitely tasty and if I had to come again, I'd definitely get more of that. The other dishes we had, some cold dishes including squid, miso beans and an udon soup however, were very unremarkable.
Little Ramen Bar
LRB is located in a very busy little part of Lt Bourke St right near +39 and Shanghai Street dumplings. The space here is very small and even with the tiny tables, there is a very limited seating inside. This partly contributes to the lines you often see outside but this place is also just generally very popular. In our opinion, though, there are definitely better ramen places in Canberra. We'd recommend you hop a couple of streets over to nearby DonToo if you want better and cheaper ramen. Firstly I know it's 'traditional' but I personally really dislike the thin slices of rolled charsiu they use here. I find it renders it a very fatty, jellied cut piece of meat to bite into and chew and while many actually prefer this, I'm not one of them. It's also quite an expensive bowl of ramen once you add all the things to make it a actually tasty bowl of noodles. You have to pay extra for butter, corn, and even garlic which means that you are easily paying $15 for what is a pretty average bowl of ramen.
Hell of the North
We were very excited to come here after hearing great things and immediately walking in the door we bumped into an old colleague of M's and his girlfriend, who reiterated that the food at this place to die for. However, while we really liked our starters, we found the mains disappointing. The starters of beef tartare the chicken liver parfait really were delicious and I would consider coming back just to have these again. The parfait was smooth and very nicely flavoured with none of that that irony strong flavour you sometimes get with liver parfaits/patés. The tartare was also very tasty but needed more spice; fortunately there were bottles of tabasco and other hot sauce at the table which we happily shook over the raw beef. I had a Milawa chicken dish and M the pork which were very mediocre to the point where we don't exactly recall the specifics. However, what we do remember is that the mains were a big let down and nowhere near as nice as the entrees.
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