Kitchen Workshop

Crown’s Kitchen Workshop is one of my favourite buffet restaurants in Melbourne for its affordable pricing and all-round good food. What makes it a winner for me is its range of offerings and their dessert selections.

What makes Kitchen Workshop attractive is its offerings of 300g of fresh iced prawns or half a dozen fresh oysters. You get a coupon/ticket when you enter and you redeem it at the seafood bar.

Their prawns might I add are pretty darn good, along with the nice seafood sauce you can grab, these prawns are fresh and nicely cooked. You could probably make a meal out of just these but of course you don’t come to Kitchen Workshop for just their seafood.

They have a mix of the usual Western and Asian dishes from pastas, to beef stews, Asian stir frys, and a selection of cooked meats. They also usually have one or two soups, the last time I went there I tried their Potato & Leek soup, and also their Tom Yum Soup. While the Leek soup was nice and creamy, their Tom Yum soup wasn’t as good as I hoped but seemed really popular anyway. The Roast Counter I find their meats to be a tad dry but with sauce it’s usually decent enough.

Kitchen Workshop also has a Teppanyaki station where you can pick an assortment of vegetables and a protein, I think people usually go with pork and watch the chef cook you up something nice from your selection using their Teppanyaki grill. It’s usually extremely popular so get in quick when you see minimal people hovering around.

For those looking for a lighter meal, they have a salad bar with your selection of cold dishes and cheeses/meats. I’m not usually a fan of cold meals so I have no real comments on these but they do look desirable.

Okay, time to talk about their desserts. It’s slightly odd how all the desserts are right at the entrance but I’m digressing. There are the usual treats, e.g tarts, cakes, custards and the like. Either fruit or chocolate, or both! They also have a chocolate fountain where you can dip strawberries or marshmallows.

I believe they also have some warm desserts, and pavlovas to boot but I can’t be certain because I usually go straight towards the one dessert.

The real star of the show, for me, is their self-serve soft-serve ice-cream machine. Phew, that was a bundle to say. However, my golly is it good. There are only two flavours, vanilla and chocolate (the chocolate being the more authentic tasting one) but you can also pick a variety of toppings, e.g syrups, sprinkles, m&ms, candies, you name it. I like it au naturale, and I could sit there all day eating just that. Probably not the healthiest thing to do, or even the cheapest option since McDonald’s do 30c Cones. Who needs cones anyway! However, it definitely is the greatest way to end a meal. Delicious.

Overall, Kitchen Workshop is pretty good value for money. It has a good range of foods and desserts plus service is usually very good (removing plates and providing drinks). I just checked their prices, it appears it may have gone up? $33.50 for dinner Fri-Sat/weekend lunch. I’m not too sure but still I’d recommend this over Conservatory any day. Unless you prefer more seafood, then go for broke at Conservatory, but be warned they have no soft-serve ice-cream there.

Kitchen Workshop

Ground Floor, Clarendon Street Entrance
8 Whiteman St
Crown Entertainment Complex
Melbourne VIC 3006

Opening hours
Lunch
Mon to Fri: 11:30am – 2:30pm
Sat: Midday – 2:30pm
Sun: Midday – 2:30pm

Dinner
Mon to Thur: 5:30pm – 9:30pm
Fri: 5:00pm – 9:30pm
Sat: 5:00pm – 10:30pm
Sun: 5:00pm – 9:30pm

I came across the Lynbrook Hotel after browsing Urbanspoon’s top Melbourne Buffet Restaurants. Having already tried China Bar, Consevatory and Kitchenworkshop (3 of the top 5), I was surprised to see Lynbrook Hotel so far up the top. Lynbrook? Lynbrook has a hotel?

After my initial shock, I checked out the official website, it said it had a International Buffet Bistro, offering European, Asian and Australian cuisines. This piqued my interest and afterall their prices were quite reasonable too.

We went to try it out for my father’s birthday, and booked the earlier session to avoid the large cohords of people (I expected anyway). Their eating area is quite spacious and clean. It makes for a welcoming dining experience.

The food is grouped into several categories, from Asian (Chinese), European (Italian), Australian, and Indian with a bit of Thai, and of course Desserts.

The Food

While I didn’t take photographs of the food itself (I was too busy eating), the food was decent and there was a great variety of dishes.

In the Asian corner, they have Fried Rice, and a few stir frys which were surprisingly decent for a restaurant primarily served by Indian chefs.

There was a good selection of seafood, from fresh prawns, to steamed fish and a few of your standard ‘Fish and Chip shop’ items, and also roast items like roast beef and potatoes, vegetables in another area.

In their European flavoured area they served mostly Italian food, i.e pastas, lasagne and pizza.

Their Indian area took me by surprise, as it smelt great. A few different styled curries, and bite sized snack food. As I mentioned before they served Thai fish cake, which was spicy! However when my parents when again for a friend’s birthday celebration, they didn’t have these on offer. So it seems their selection of food varies slightly per week.

Their dessert menu consisted of a lot of cakes and sugary treats. My favourite was the warm almond cake, and the chocolate mousse. Of course, they served ice-cream for the kids, which was running empty by the hours end. I’ll admit their selection of desserts was great, but nothing can top soft serve ice-cream at Kitchen Workshop.

There were a couple of downsides, their pizzas weren’t cooked long enough so the bread was still doughly. Perhaps their second run of pizzas were better, I didn’t attempt to try it again.

As mentioned earlier, their 3 tubs of ice-cream were probably sitting there for a while so it wasn’t replaced as quickly (or at all) during our session. Some of their dishes were slightly overcooked but I can overlook that as it wasn’t terribly bad.

Overall impressions

The Lynbrook Hotel serves a great selection of food, for what you pay for, you do get your monies worth. Compared to Kitchen Workshop which is roughly the same price, I’d prefer Kitchen Workshop but if you’re looking for some tasty Asian dishes Lynbrook is your best bet.

Lynbrook Hotel

550 South Gippsland Highway
Lynbrook

VIC 3975

Bistro Prices and Sessions Here

ohdenny

Tag: Kitchen Workshop

Kitchen Workshop

Lynbrook Hotel