Kong

Kong is owned by the same people who do chin chin and baby pizza, The Lucas Group. And like its other restaurant counterparts, it has a cool vibe and has people queuing out the door for quality dining. Kong creates modern dishes with Korean inspired flavours, lots of intense flavours and lots of BBQ’d things.

The endamame was delish. They saw some heat on the wood grill and were seasoned with chilli & sea salt. Excellent starter.

The BBQ corn was juicy and had a nice char to it. It was covered in a delicious miso butter and sprinkled with chilli salt.

The miso eggplant was beautifully caramelised. And it was served in iceburg lettuce with sesame, chervil & yuzu. Easy to eat and really tasty.

The roti was nice and soft and was a good dipping tool to savour all the flavour in the saucy dishes.

The Korean fried chicken wings were doused in a thick, sticky honey garlic sauce and was topped with sesame seeds, spring onion and coriander. The sauce was really flavoursome and intense. They were super tasty but I couldn’t eat a lot of them in a row.

We had the salmon roti rolls which was teriyaki grilled salmon w rocket and spicy tomato salsa. I knew it was salmon because I ordered it but otherwise I wouldn’t have known it was salmon. It was okay but probably my least fave of the night.

We tried the soft-shell crab with salted duck egg relish & coriander. The bao was so soft and smooth, I was patting it like it was my little pet. It was crunchy, tangy, fresh and delicious. Yum!

The Kong Bossam BBQ tray was a platter of different meats, which included a little tasting of pulled chicken & pork, pork belly & beef brisket. The meats were tasty and had different flavours and textures. There was some lettuce leaves to put the meat in and pickled veg for freshness and some tasty condiments like kimchi & walnut ssamjang to add a chilli kick. Very tasty indeed.

The Dukkbokki rice-cakes were sort of like over-sized, oddly shaped noodles that resembled little alien tenticles. The sauce was thick, spicy and delicious. It had red chilli, gochujang & roasted parsnip. It was a great vegetarian option. The rice-cakes soaked up the sauce so well and each bite was full of flavour.

The black sesame ice cream looked fantastic. It was smooth and the flavour was nutty sort of like tahini. I’m not a huge black sesame ice-cream fan but this was pleasant.

The apple & walnut tart was delicious. It had thin slices of soft apple and a crunchy walnut crumb on top. There was miso butterscotch poured on, over and around the tart, which was a thin sweet and sticky sauce. On top of the tart was a scoop of Japanese whisky ice-cream. The Japanese flavours take this dish to another level. It has the essence of a traditional apple pie but with a modern Japanese twist. It’s a good one for winter.

The coconut sago trifle was heavenly. The sago was covered in creamy coconut, the passionfruit layer was a burst of fresh fruit and the pineapple layer tasted sweet and caramelised. Absolute bliss.

It’s a walk in restaurant so you can’t make a booking and it gets really busy so you can expect to wait over an hour at peak times. We left our name and number and visited the pub down the street (Prince Albert Hotel) for some drinks to pass the time and they called us when our table was ready. You also have the option to take-away if you prefer. The food came out pretty quickly and the staff were fantastic, very friendly and attentive. And the food was full of flavour and super tasty so definitely worth the wait.

I heart Kong!

Olives x

Kong
Address: 599 Church St, Richmond VIC 3121
Website: https://www.kongbbq.com.au/
Phone: 03 9427 1307
Trading Hours: Mon-Sun: 11am 'til late (open 7 days)