lee ho fook

keeps us coming back. love this place, the food is to die for and the staff are excellent, great wine list too. i'm glad to see the menu slowly growing but it leaves us unable to try all dishes so we keep coming back but end up having our favourites again! scallop and tofu starter is beautiful, duck and mandarin pancakes are amazing as is the eggplant, can't not order it! our new favourites are the barramundi, it is so beautifully cooked and the sauce is perfect balance for the fish. we are also addicted to the moreton bay bug tails, they are so tender i've never eaten them like this before, the fried rice is so beautiful and fluffy we never have room for anything else! we been going at least fortnightly since they opened and just love it more each time. if you love good qualitychinesefood then you must try lee ho fook. well done guys!


-----11 oct, 2013-----

great thoughtful chinese!. attended lee ho fook on there 3rd night open and whilst still in soft opening mode with a limited menu there was still plenty to choose from. we loved all our dishes from king prawns with a marmaldy mayonnaise, fabulous crispy eggplant, gorgeous sashimi, delicate steamed snapper and a lovely lamb belly dish, we thoroughly enjoyed our night. looking forward to returning to sample the full menu which starts next week.

really beautiful modernchinesefood. we were in a large group and the patient & professional staff coped very well with this mild chaos. perfectly satisfied with $68 banquet and the food fantastic.

i'd love to return though with my partner to really relax and consider each beautifully cooked dish.

we appreciate good service and our waiter last night was spot-on - attentive, friendly, well-mannered. you'd think this would be a given for hospitality staff but no. the waitress couldn't be bothered to be there and spilled quite a bit of water on a mobile and didn’t care. never mind, we had the waiter dude we chose to stick with.

we had the crispy vinegar eggplant, pork belly, sour kale, chinizza and lots of chilli. everything went so well together! reading the descriptions doesn’t quite do the flavours justice. when you’re eating them, the layer upon layer you’re tasting….sigh…. the pickled fennel from the pork belly went well with the crispy eggplant and the fermented chilli from the sour kale. not like your good oldchineseplace, i mean there’s always a time and place for supper inn, but that’s the whole point.  one of us, who apparently didn't like eggplant, and yet...we had to stop her from licking the plate from the crispy eggplant dish.  lhf did well in her eyes :)  out of all our desserts my faves were the burnt caramel custard (which should be bigger, but that could be because we devoured it) and the baked chocolate mousse.

superb. had dinner there tonight and we were blown away by the food and service .. don't go if your expecting a local greasy spoonchinesemeal .. this is something absolutely special and i can't wait to return ..

posted on may 10, 2015 by fabulousandtasty leave a comment lee ho fook is the new kid to open on smith street this year. a simple refurb of a tight 45-seat restaurant, the bar taking up a significant slice of the floor action. the front window is deceptive with a panda etched on to the smoked-glass front window, and a swirly two-tone charcoal and white paint job that suggests the restaurant is under development. the menus reflects a modernchineserestaurant with charcoal walls and a softly and subtle yin yang paint job. a solitary golden cat waves the air in this funky restaurant, the waitresses wander around the tables always attentive and the restaurants hums with an air of excitement all on its own. this is the first head chef gig for victor liong, and the pressure is on. the dishes hitting tables tell the full story of liong’s love ofchineseflavours, his rigorous training in classical french technique and science unite. dishes are small and so a wide variety is recommended by the staff. we started with entrees of raw kingfish with leeks radish and mushroom bathed in burnt garlic and ginger white soy cream and a plate of crispy eggplant with spiced red vinegar and a dish of spiced wagyu tartare on puffed rice soon followed. warm scallops and silken tofu with soy butter and a huge twice braised cooked pork belly then landed on our table. be warned the pork belly could easily feed four people

overall, it's a pretty good place to just chill with wine and snacks. mainly servechinesefusion with a little of other asian (japanese) influence. reasonably good service but could be better.

food (3.5): delicious but on the salty side if you intend not to have rice. suited for lots of drinking .
portion also relatively small - need many dishes to be filling as a main meal.
ambience (3.0): the bar area is nice to hang out while waiting for your table and the seats in the restaurant are reasonably comfy. not a lot of deco as pointed out by other reviewers
service (3.5): friendly, but just a tad lacking in attentiveness. (head) waiter knew the menu, introduces carefully before we order and made sure we know which dishes are hot or not ( temperature). the waiter and waitresses also took care to introduce the dish name as they set them down, but not a single person ask how is everything throughout the whole meal. bizarre. not even when the plates were taken away. almost like we were circled by keen waiters and waitresses that are keen to clear plates to serve us the next dish.

that's it for the rating. you may wish to stop here if you are not after the story of the service experience.

overall i would have given it a higher rating if not for the fact that we booked, and have had to wait 30 minutes for our table. as ours was the later session, i wasn't sure if diners were advised of the need to return the table for the next round. in fact, 15 minutes into our booking we were advised our table's diners' havering their dessert...
i get that this joint is popular, but i am not queuing up for food, i booked. we were constantly reminded that they are moving the diners on. it was especially bad as we already had drinks (we arrived early ) and are starving for our dinner.

the food came relatively quickly after we ordered, nicely presented and on the small portion side. as we ordered 8 dishes ( mix of different sections on the menu) to share, that came out to be just enough for 4.

dessert was the most impressive, or it's because we ordered the two that looked most interesting.
the custard was made to perfection and the taste was amazing. tea-ramisu came amazingly big portion, unexpectedly.

all in all, a not too bad experience. will i be back? maybe not if i am super hungry

...i have to admit, lee ho fook has opened my eyes and palate. dinner at lee ho fook was to celebratechinesenew year and also to catch up with my bunch of singapore homies from my previous work-place. we managed to snag a reservation along the popular, then-newish, restaurant on smith street and rocked up to a dim raucous atmosphere at lee ho fook. milk bun, braised pork belly and cucumber $6 gossip exchanged, we got down into serious business with fatbooo and fatbooobooo starting with a pork belly milk bun to share. we were expecting a “gua bow” (ala wonderbao ) type of bun but what was presented was a slider of sort. fried soft sweet buns sandwiched a crisp deep-fried slice of pork belly, accompanied by a s

lee ho fook melbourne is the new incarnation of one of our favourite smith street restaurants, lee ho fook. it’s been over 2 years since victor liong opened up his refinedchineseeatery so, with a relocation to bigger, snazzier cbd digs what’s changed?

chinese fusion would normally not impress my parents at all (especially my dad) and yet they found themselves enjoying their meal at lee ho fook in collingwood.  thechinesefood here is done well with fresh ingredients and a frequently changing menu.  i’m quite glad they keep crowd favourites on there though.

the eggplant was just as delicious as everybody says. but thechinesemushrooms were oversalted and disappointing.

lee ho fook is a modernchineserestaurant that is still fairly new to the city, it’s been open for about 7 weeks. it was formerly a restaurant in collingwood but has moved to duckboard place off flinders lane in melbourne. they servechinesefood but it’s not your special fried rice, honey chicken kind of place (hehe) it’s a modern take onchinesefood and flavours. they play around with traditional flavours and come up with creative ways to expresschinesecuisine.

this place is so wrong on every level. a complete amateur show.no one in charge and terrible service. wine list forgettable and the food. well this place epitomises whats wrong with modern culture a try hard chef trying to be something that he's not. tiniest menu i'v even seen for achinesemenu which goes against the very culture of sharing this great cuisine.

fabulouschinesefood in a lovely setting with quality ingredients and attentive staff. will recommend to others looking for a city venue to dine inside.

a new stylechinesecuisine, lee ho fook. heard so much about them but never dined there. so we took advantage of the melbourne stage 4 lockdown, to try their cook “at home” dish. sussing out what they are all about! there were so many variety of at home dishes to select from, but because i’m pregnant, i was very cautious of what to order. so it came to trying their dan dan noodles for two, $30!

came here for a birthday dinner. i’m not that much into fusion food as i think it’s really someone mixing and mashing things together. but i like it here. it fusioned it really well. great tastes.

we ordered the crab special - advance ordering required. it felt fantastic to eat achinesecrab without needing to get all messy with the fingers.

the manager was also really sweet. one of the guys wanted a mango pudding - which wasn’t even on the menu!! obviously not available. the manager and he had fun bantering over this. then, the manager surprised him with a mango with ice cream - mind you, mango of any sort wasn’t seen on the menu. obviously made his day 😊. he wasn’t even the birthday boy.

needless to say, our entire crew was very happy with the service.

we have been back a few more times since that birthday celebration. and it will always be on our mind for fusion chinese.