POONS - Melbourne

A local favourite Jim Wongs recently closed so we felt like delicious Chinese so we walked a few metres further down the same street to Poons and wished we didn’t. Firstly they don’t accept cards, just cash, this immediately shows a red flag for the...assumption of potentially under paying staff cash only and not on the books. They have an ATM in their waiting area. What restaurant has an ATM in them? Its 2020, get an Eftpos machine, who carries cash? We thought about walking away but the place was busy and I said well ok we’ll try once and see what the fuss was about. We ordered take away and had some enjoyment seeing their patrons come and go (think bogans not from Footscray, people who wear thongs to dinner and their dream holiday destination is Bali). Food took a while but it came out and we left and went home to eat. Stale prawn crackers, deep fried wontons with barely any filling, just hard crunchy stale deep fried batter. The special fried rice was boring and tasteless, the satay rolls were dry and not satay and the satay chicken was also not satay, they need to look up what satay is before cooking it. The food was dreadful, the restaurants ambience is that of a pokies lounge circa 1993 and the staff looked vague and confused. Give it a miss. We will never return and it’s unfortunate as I was looking forward to some nice comfort food after a long week but it wasn’t anywhere to be found at Poons. Dreadful. That’s a hard pass.

Poons serves Chinese food. It has a loyal following. The food is enjoyable. It 's the sort of Australo-Chinese food that is not often seen these days Their signatiure dishes, such as Mongolian sizzling steak are still great eating. We also had chicken chow mein. It 's...said to be modern Asian cuisine with Chinese favourites. Our starters, dim sims, seem to have come out of a packer, which was a triflle disapointing. We took two bottles of wine. Corkage is minimal. CompetitorJim Wang 's seems be going out of busieness, but Poon 's has survived.

Have not been to poons in years as was not impressed last time I was there. Went back for a friends get together. This time what an improvement. Food was tasty and fresh. They had two big tables in ours being one of them. Although...they were a little slow on taking orders food came out quite quickly,. Great menu with lots of choices. You can byo or buy from their fairly limited wine selection, would I return. Definitely.

During lunchtime, the restaurant was not crowded. The staff was friendly and the service was quick. We ordered two dishes from the extensive menu, as well as rice and green tea. However, we were a bit disappointed as we suspected that the meals may have been modified for Australian tastes rather than being authentic Chinese cuisine.

Group of friends we catch every year at poons. beautiful restaurant amazing staff and behind the scenes it must be an ingenious cook. beautiful selection of foods, we could never complain, as there is nothing to complain to keep the good work. we love you all