Cockroaches, microwaved food, brunch \u201cworse than a McDonalds cheeseburger\u201d. <\/p>\n
The world of online restaurant ratings is cruel, brutal and unhinged. <\/p>\n
Google or TripAdvisor reviews can make or break a business \u2014 or at least have you second-guessing dinner. <\/p>\n
As the Herald Sun\u2019s food and wine editor and restaurant critic, I\u2019m lucky enough to have eaten in some of the city\u2019s best restaurants, but not always the worst.<\/p>\n
I also don\u2019t hold a lot of faith in user-generated reviews.<\/p>\n
Iffy restaurants game the system by getting their mates to leave favourable scores. <\/p>\n
Others promise money off the final bill in exchange for a five-star review. <\/p>\n
Quite frankly, the system is cooked.<\/p>\n
So I wondered whether those one-star reviews actually held any weight? Were those restaurants really as bad as they were made out to be online?<\/p>\n
After filtering the gross, from the grubby and gastro-inducingly bad (and arming myself with a pack of Imodium) I set off to review Melbourne restaurants with the worst, one-star reviews.<\/p>\n
From the tourist traps, to restaurants so bad \u201cfood from your own kitchen floor\u201d is better off \u2014 nothing was off limits. <\/p>\n
The Quarter<\/p>\n
First stop, Degraves St honey pot The Quarter. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a tourism hotspot and easy lure for hungry mouths looking to box-tick a city laneway restaurant experience. I\u2019m seated immediately, handed a menu, and then wait to order. <\/p>\n
A couple of businessmen seated directly next to me, have their orders taken before me. <\/p>\n
I was seated first, and tell them I\u2019ll order next. They insist I order now. <\/p>\n
\u201cLadies first,\u201d they say, as the waiter stares awkwardly at us.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not her fault, the staff are run off their feet and can\u2019t keep up with who ordered when. What this suggests is there\u2019s no flow in the dining room. <\/p>\n
Orders are taken sporadically and land at the table in a similar fashion. <\/p>\n
At one stage all 30 people inside the restaurant were waiting for their food to come out. <\/p>\n
I waited half an hour for my ricotta-stuffed zucchini flowers arrive \u2014 this isn\u2019t too bad, the average I\u2019ve worked out from reviewing hundreds of restaurants over the years is 15-20 minutes.<\/p>\n
Thirty minutes is longer than the average, but excusable because they are busy. <\/p>\n
The result? Sad, limp and as oily as a sunbaker in summer. The zucchini and rocket salad beneath doubled as paper towel that day. <\/p>\n
The filling inside the flowers was non-existent and those cucumber ribbons, as stated on the menu, were actually zucchini. Close enough, right? <\/p>\n
The salad was fresh, just underseasoned and underdressed. <\/p>\n
The Quarter wasn\u2019t terrible, but not amazing, and nor a true reflection of a great Melbourne laneway restaurant. <\/p>\n
Kim Sing <\/p>\n
This Chinese restaurant was far worse.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve spat food into a napkin, or watch staff yell at each other like Gordon Ramsay on a bad day in full-view of the dining room. Or be served food from one of three microwaves. Actually, this should have been a red flag. Food landing within five minutes of ordering was another. Birds flying around the restaurant and rubbish and old cardboard boxes strewn over the floor should have signalled \u201cget the hell outta there\u201d. <\/p>\n
Bizarrely, The Capitol Arcade venue had no shortage of customers. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s because everything on menu costs no more than $15.50. It\u2019s cheap \u2014 but far from cheerful. No frills or thrills, the vegetarian rice was blander than a dish prepped in a high school\u2019s home-ec class. <\/p>\n
The wonton soup broth tasted solely of onions, not chicken as I assume was intended. <\/p>\n
The wontons bobbing within were filled with an indecipherable meat akin to a cold, fatty sausage. It was so disgusting I spat it into my napkin. <\/p>\n
The noodles were fine, and my interactions with the staff were pleasant. The staff all wore plastic gloves, but the bowls felt greasy to touch. <\/p>\n
It was so gross, I felt like a needed a shower afterwards. <\/p>\n
The Crane<\/p>\n
In comparison, The Crane was a breath of fresh air. Despite being fined by the Department of Health for breaching food safety standards around hygiene, the experience was pleasantly surprising. The restaurant itself appeared clean, with staff wiping tables and sweeping the floor in their downtime. The food was being cooked to order out the back. I ordered wonton soup, chilli wontons and Singapore noodles. The soup had a chicken broth that tasted as you\u2019d expect with perhaps a little too much salt, or MSG. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t unpleasant, but not slurp-the-bowl-dry delicious either. <\/p>\n
The wontons were soft and supple, though the chilli lacked a fiery punch. A waiter told me they make the meat mix at restaurant daily. Singapore noodles, a dish all about texture, lived up to expectations. The curry powder, which gives it its trademark fluorescent yellow tinge, wasn\u2019t potent. There were a number of vegetables in the mix: red and green capsicum, onions, bean shoots. The only concern? The kitchen staff weren\u2019t wearing hair nets. One woman working in the kitchen also blew her nose and put a tissue in the bin in full view of the dining room. I just hope she washed her hands.<\/p>\n