Yes! Magic Monkey (http://munchbrothers.org/2008/magic-monkey-restaurant-review-melbourne) has expired. I for one will not be mourning. Yes, it was cheap, yes it was cheerful – but it did nothing to stand out other than as a ‘dash-and-grab-something-quick’ joint because I was too stressed for time to get a decent lunch at a similar price.

I went I think 3 times. Once to try, once with a friend, and once out of desperation! So I am quite interested by its closing and the opening of ‘Haru’, a more traditional Japanese alternative and dropped by there today. While it’s not perfect it is a darn sight improved on the old venue – so check the review out of Haru coming soon.

And a word on our review policy – note, unlike other Restaurant Review sites, we do not get free meals for ANY reviews we do, nor does the venue know they are being reviewed at the time – it’s a strict policy of mystery reviews. Therefore the quantity of reviews we can do is limited by our lunch budget for the week as well as the time we can spare from our respective jobs. While I’d love to review a place a day for you all and tell you everything about it, a lunch visit to the likes of a Seamstress or Flower Drum wipes our budget for the rest of the week out.

Also our formal reviews are scored out of 20, the same as The Age, but we go further and break that down into 5 categories in order to be more accurate – both to you the reader and to the restaurant, who sometimes with The Age’s reviews might not get a clear picture of why they got a particular score.  We are also not quite as tight assed as The Age mob in our scores as we do consider the relative market segment they are aimed at.  That way a more ‘low-brow’ cafe that would otherwise never hope to get more than an 11 from The Age simply because they don’t stock $40 bottles of (free) wine can score reasonably reflective of its market positioning.

All of which is a somewhat long-winded way of saying we’re not as exclusive as The Age in our reviews! And that probably works better in stretching our lunch money further too! Which is not too say we don’t review the pricier places – Movida’s (expect to pay about $40 a head) review is coming soon, and we plan to visit Long Grain in August which is similarly priced.

So if you are a small, vibrant cafe with at least a freshly cooked-to-order menu (excludes fast-food joints now Macca’s are ‘made-to-order’) then drop us a line and we’ll review fairly as per the above stipulations.

All The Best,

Jeff.

Tags: Food News, Haru, Japanese, japanese restaurant

Trackback URI | Comments RSS