Orient East

OK, this is a difficult review as we ate their twice. once for dinner which was great, the Nasi Goreng was amazing, so worth it, one of the best I have eaten.
However the next day I had breakfast, the service was disorganised and hit and miss. Walking out the door of the kitchen the waiter would yell and you would have to put your hand up to grab the meal, I have never had service like it. After an hour I was still waiting for my coffee.
So it is a bit hit and miss, maybe expecting a great breakfast from a asian restaurant was a bit much

I was very surprised that what I had thought was a simple hotel restaurant served me perhaps the best nasi goreng I have had in Australia!
The staff were also very friendly and helpful considering we rocked in later in the evening on a Sunday.
Sadly after a weekend of power eating was I far to full to try much more, though I’d like to explore the menu more on a future visit.

I don’t have much to add except to say that they have a delicious chili sauce which you can purchase by the bottle.

So we saw a special for a Mother’s Day feast at Orient East (I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it)
My parents who are generally fussy about the dining choices we pick actually loved Orient East. They have a great mix of Malaysian dishes, included Nonya curries and authentic satays.
For the set menu we had:
Coconut Water on arrival (The flyer did not mention one per table, so we were slightly disappointed to pay for another one as we still shared one between two)
A pork and prawn dumpling, a chicken dumpling and a duck bun — The duck bun was my favourite, so soft and tasty!
Chicken Satay Skewers — Satay sauce was very nice with peanuts all throughout
Chicken Curry, Lamb Curry and Prawn Sambal (Shrimp Sambal) — Sambal is one of my favourites but this one was quite sweet, the chicken curry and lamb curry were ridiculous tasty though which made up for the sambal.
Lychee ice cream with real lychees — so the menu actually read lychee sorbet but I am fairly sure I tasted diary.
Overall the food was quite yum, but the service is what I found most interesting. The restaurant was half full and understandably seeing it is a few kilometres down from the CBD. We were served by multiple wait staff and it was hard to work out who knew what, when we asked for simple things like soy-​sauce and chilli for our dumplings we had to wait for a dumplings to go cold before receiving them. On top of that we actually had to ask three separate waiters to bring it to us.
One of the more friendlier staff, (who we thought was the manager) came and asked me whether we would like to have a break before main course. I politely declined and he then responded «Ok, I will give you a short break then». Before desert he also apologised as they had apparently run out of lychees, he then explained that they had a Rambutan alternative as they had just bought them in fresh. We said that was fine and were looking forward to having some of the new desert. 10 minutes later another waitress comes out and brings us all lychee deserts to which were super confused and asked her about the Rambutan. She looked clueless and just left the lychee deserts and pointed to the menu.
It was definitely an interesting experience, our food was great but the service was average. The table behind us stood up as we left and thanked us for coming, so we are guessing they were the owners. I would love to come back soon and try other dishes on the menu, including the Kaya Brulee!

This restaurant is attached to the Seasons. A great value apartment hotel near downtown Melbourne. It is owned by Malaysians. The staff is friendly and efficient. I sat outside and ordered a drink and Quinoa burger for lunch but then the sun was too hot so I moved indoors. The server found me with no problems when the food came. The move, alone would have baffled most places like this. The burger was very good quality. It has a smalish menu but adequate

This restaurant has a bit of an identity crisis kind of like an interracial baby. It serves both Asian and Western food, but I must say it does a pretty good job on both fronts.
It’s situated at the bottom of the Seasons hotel on St Kilda Rd which may explain why it does both menus — it’s a Malaysian restaurant but perhaps the predominantly gweilo hotel guests might find the food a bit spicy.
I’ve been here a couple of times and tried both the Asian and Western dishes, and I’ve enjoyed both times. The first time I had the seafood linguini which I always get if I see it on a menu anywhere, because it seems to be a dish that’s impossible to stuff up. The second time I had the nasi goreng which unfortunately was a tad spicy for my liking but I also had the twice cooked mandarin stewed duck which had an amazing flavour.
Robert, the Malaysian owner, is a funny bloke who knows his wines and engages in friendly banter with the guests. I asked him how do you make the twice cooked duck and he reveals his secret: «Well, you know, the first thing is that you have to cook the duck, (pauses thoughtfully) and then you cook it again, and so you have twice cooked duck lah.» Funny guy.
He then told me sorry he was just joking and then SMSed me a list of all the ingredients inside the dish sans any instructions: oyster sauce, soya sauce, dark soya sauce, cinnamon sticks, szechuan pepper, star aniseed, angel root, sugar, bay leaf, ginger, tea leaf, mandarin skin, garlic, onion, yoke chook, duck bones, & kumquats. Thanks, genius.
This place is tastefully decorated with large prints of Asian women from the 1950s lining the walls which provides a nice little charm and has a great ambiance. Staff provide excellent service and there’s a great selection of beer and wine.