Rose Garden BBQ Restaurant, Melbourne (Australia) - Review

435 Elizabeth Street,
Melbourne VIC 3000
(03) 9329 1560

The Rose Garden can be found on Elizabeth St near the Franklin St Tram Stop. From the outside the place is not much to look at and feast your eyes on.

Outside the restaurant, there are a few very simple and cheap looking plastic tables sitting under a couple of bright yellow umbrellas. When you walk inside the first thing you'll notice is how busy the place is. Most of the tables are always full and there is constant hectic traffic of food and empty plates in and out of the kitchen.

Inside the restaurant the owners have decided to dress up the place a bit by decorating the walls with bright pink, blue, yellow, and minty green colour sheets of papers glued to the otherwise dull hospital like walls. Each sheet of paper has what appears to be traditional Chinese writing symbols. Maybe these are transcripts from wise Chinese philosophy. Although I would not know. It could be just the menu.

Even though the place decorations are a bit on the tacky side, I was still impressed the owners of the restaurant at least went to some effort to give the place a bit of charm. When you walk inside and suddenly find yourself confronted with all the random colours you feel a bit like you've walked into a Japanese cartoon.

I ordered  Kway Teow while my partner ordered BBQ pork on rice. To my surprise the food arrived in what seemed less than 5 minutes. They must have things running very efficiently in the kitchen. The food here is very cheap.

You can expect to pay less than 10$ for a whole meal. They also provide free herbal tea, which adds a nice touch. The food quality was more than adequate, especially considering the price we paid.

The BBQ pork although not as succulent as one would hope was still crisp and satisfying. The noodles were very flavoursome and the veggies tasted fresh and crunchy. 

The menu here consists of what seems like over 50 different dishes. I would be more than happy to come back to this place again and again until I have tried everything on their menu. Sadly I know this will never happen because for one I'm not rich enough to eat out every night, and two there are so many places to eat in Melbourne that one can easily get distracted. It seems like no matter where you go in this town you're bound to stumble on a little foody gem.

Quality of Food: 7/10 stars
Quality of Service: 7/10 tars
Atmosphere and Presentation: 6/10 stars
Value for Money: 8/10 stars

Overall Rating: 7/10 stars