Review Charcoal - Albany

Perfect spot for group gathering to nibble and drink. Various dishes to choose from (chicken, pork, beef, lamb, squid, noddles, rice…), we went on a weekday but it’s quite busy, better make a reservation if you plan a weekend visit.

About three years ago I stayed in a nearby hotel. Feeling hungry I went to Mr Charcoal for dinner not realising that the restaurant catered for mainly Chinese patrons. The menu was all in Chinese, so I did what I normally do when travelling overseas, I let the server decide what I’m going to eat. The food was absolutely delicious. So I took a photo of each dish and each time I visit I show the photos to the server and there’s no confusion. If you like delicious Chinese food Mr Charcoal is the place to go.

Looking for other places to eat at 8 in the evening in Albany, we found this place full to the pack. Good thing, a table was available. Noisy but ambiance was upbeat and crowd of almost yuppies. Service was fast and came in no time. Food was delish so as the price. Would recommend the place to friends.

Came here with the family, we are a group of 11 with one toddler. The staff were great and the food was delicious. Chinese food with a modern twist but still taste like Asian food. Highly recommend booking since the sitting is limited but takeaway is available.

Stayed open late and had a great variety of food with varying levels of spices. The staff were also very accomodating to serve for gluten free as he too was coeliac. Saved our night !

I loved the food and I've found that they were selling the Korean cold noodle soup which has kimchi on it. I thought that's Chinese restaurant. Maybe it's an East Asian restaurant. I'm confused with the concept. BTW food is amazing.

Not bad for weekend catching up and BBQ screwers are North Eastern Chinese flavor, love it !

We ate here tonight and the food was pretty good. Price was fair and the staff were attentive. Although if you like the usual cuts of meat (chicken breast, etc) there is slightly limited choices. All in all it is a great place to eat

Will go again for a quick midweek feed. Good value large plates. Scewers maybe not so much

Great service and great food. It's worth to go back again to try other food. However, please make reservation on weekends before going :)

Two thumbs up. Haven’t had this memorable taste of 烧烤 (Chinese BBQ) in such a long time! The atmosphere reminds me of similar joints in China :-)

WONDERFUL! AMAZING! STUNNING! Very good yummy Chinese style BBQ. Love to have them everyday.

I normally dont leave comments but this place is divine and the service is awesome. I dont usually dine outdoor but will visit again. Surely is above criticism

The flavour was ok, might be back fir some ribs next time as it looked nice~

I'm not an expert, just a simple kiwi bloke, but this place seemed like the real deal. Got the chicken feet cause you have to try something unusual at a place like this - they were delicious. The chicken wings were very spicy - also delicious. We all had a great time and it was good value for money.

Read reviews in Zomato and been there for dinner , the lady who served us was very busy alone serving all the customers in the restaurant, was nice and friendly and she apologized for being too busy and lateness . We ordered three dishes including lamb &beef skewers , fried rice and peking duck, price was a bit too high but delicious ., space is a bit small for a big family to visit .

I've been here a few times and I always get the Hot Pot Rice. They are steamed up rice with different flavoured toppings like the sweet meaty and the tender belly. Both are my favourite as it reminds me of my mother's Chinese cooking.  If you're planning to order this, definitely eat the burnt rice at the bottom. That's the best part. Definitely a place for a hot meal. Limited seats and friendly staff.

We had the clay pot chicken/mushroom and pork belly rice. Very tasty, fresh & great quality ingredients. We'll be back to try the other dishes.

Very nice ambient, cafe style Chinese place. Food and service was okay but seats are limited. They were pricy to me for the portion given. Here is more like a cafe rather than a dining place to me.

My best favourite Chinese restaurant, nice food nice service. Always as good as they are. Peking duck and their oysters are my favourite. Very recommended to try.

First service, professional staff that go through menu and let us know all recommended didh of the day. <br/>Great portion. Oyster was very fresh and yummy. Def coming back!!

Great place, great service and amazing food. Recommend the crab if you can take a bit of heat, there is no alcohol on offer but a good selection of drinks and is child friendly. They do takeaways too.<br/><br/>This place is tiny so booking is a must and seems to be much quieter for lunch than dinner.

I was pleasantly surprised that the food was really good! <br/>We ordered the lamb ribs and skewers and the meat just falls off from the bone and melts in your mouth!

I really like the ambiance of this little restaurant. It feels quite open and relaxed. Loved the decoration. Service was very good too. <br/>Foodwise, it's really good. I liked the Pork belly skewer, which literally melt in your mouth. Ribs are nice and juicy, meat just fell off the bone. It gets a bit oily after eating all that meat. Fortunately they put heaps of lemon in the water, which helped quite a bit.<br/>I can't wait to try their Peking duck next time.

Great atmosphere, very well worth every penny, big variety of food to choose from great if you want to go somewhere small and cosy, will defiantly be back

Very fresh food, the Jude dumplings and spring onion Roti was my fave out of our 5 dishes, the skewers weren't skewers just cubes of meat and quite dry, and as we got takeaway I would have expected the food to be a bit cheaper then dining in but it was the same price as dine in.

Second time visit, awesome food and environment. Love the hot pot rice, bring me back to my hometown🤓🤓🤓, we will definitely come back next time and truly recommended for Asian food lover😋😋

It is a very cute place...!!! The pork hot pot rice is very nice. On the top there are also some verges:) I also ordered a boiled spinach which is not on their menu. They cooked that for me, and when I arrived they also asked if I want add some chicken soup into the spinach dish. I will recommend you to come especially for their hot pot rice. That is so yummy. The service is good and the circumstance is nice as well.

A very good restaurant, each dish is particularly hard, but also very delicate, very large component, the environment is very good, the service is also very intimate, the next will patronize again

We tried the pork belly, guilt free chicken and sweet meaty rice hot pot. The pork belly and guilt free chicken was really good the sweet meaty rice was sweet chinese sausages on rice. It was good especially with some of the sauce of the pork belly on it as without us putting the sauce was a bit dry. Would definitely come back and recommend to friends. Portion sizes were large to share and place was clean and tidy!!! This was a great find

I have been here quite a few times, this restaurant has a great environment, not your typical Chinese restaurant. They only have a few seats but for the small space they have, they make it feel really open. <br/><br/>Every time I come here I always order the spring onion roti, it is a delicious oily spring onion pancake which is perfectly made and has a deliciously soft texture. I have also tried the tender pork belly and the tender belly hot pot rice, they are basically the same thing except in the hot pot there is rice and less meat. The fat of the belly is perfect, if you prefer a more meaty meal I wouldn't recommend this dish. I have also tried the soft bone chicken hot pot rice, there isn't much sauce to it and it has a little spiciness, if you don't like bones I wouldn't recommend this. If you are vegetarian the mixed vegetable hot pot rice would be the perfect choice, you would think that it would be bland and flavourless but the sauce mixes in with the rice which makes it just perfect for a light hearted meal.<br/><br/>The only downside is that the wait for the items is quite long, it took an hour for two hot pot rices to be served which is a lot of time considering the restaurant wasn't even full. Overall this is my go-to restaurant if I just wanted to eat by myself or with a friend.

Great place for dinner! <br/><br/>I went here with 2 others on a friday night. The food was delicious and generous in portion sizes: jade dumplings (highly recommended), guilt-free chicken, pork belly, and sweet and sour pork. <br/><br/>The wait staff were friendly, with just a bit of a timing issue in waiting for our drinks. I recommend trying to reserve one of the tables along the outer edge as the ones in the middle are small and uncomfortable with people walking around you all the time.<br/><br/>I will definitely be back.

Peking duck & BBQ Ribs are awsome, as well as the two rice dishes we ordered, decent proportion. Mocha Smoothies is just the right teast and looks fantastic. All of our order met expectation. Oh, and excllent dining enviroment and staff.<br/><br/>Definately will try the skewers next time.

After reading such great reviews on here 3 of us went for dinner last Tuesday  it was everything we expected, such lovely staff and service so helpful, we had the lemon chicken, special beef and the pork belly.... they were all so good, we don't live far from here and will be back regularly, takeaways on the way home from work is going to be often im sure. thanks Char coal

such amazing fresh Chinese

Awesome food! Nice environment! Wonderful service. Manager gave good suggestion from the menu. Would like to go again regularly! Worth the drive!👍👍 super recommend!!!

Very nice food, first time coming and the food is absolutely superb, the service is really great. Fast and quick order. <br/>Definitely need to recommend this to everyone.

Not an ordinary Chinese Restaurant. <br/>Presentation is elegant. Place is cozy and homey. Super warm and friendly staff. Food is superb! We will definitely be back tomorrow. Highly recommended! More power to Char Coal Restaurant.

I've passed Char Coal and often wondered what it was like as the location isn't great although it's central in Albany and heaps of parking. The staff are great! The food is Chinese but definitely fusion. The choices were great and incredible flavours. There was 2 of us and we ordered too much food so took some home. We had the Bok Choy and the chicken wings to start. I'd never had chicken wings as great, full of flavour and crispy. We ordered the chow mein and bbq ribs as our mains. The chow mein had incredible flavours and was full of chicken and veg and the pork spare ribs just fell off the bone. I will definitely be a regular here!

I was actually surprised by how GOOOOOOD the foot tastes!!!! Initially attracted by the name and idea of Chinese BBQ, and found it's a cute little place (like a cafe setting) with funnily-named dishes on the menu such as "Dancing Beef". Absolutely recommend FISH IN RED!

Bravo!!! This little Chinese restaurant has done so many things to impress me. Nicely decoration, something rare to be found in NZ. Service was even better, warm welcome with so much fun when talking to the front of house. It's totally something new and wonderful experience in a Chinese restaurant! Food was outstanding, every dish looks great and big. And I keep wondering how can they cook the food with so much flavor which I haven't try before, and the food was so good! This restaurant absolutely brain washed my opinion about the Chinese food. I will definitely go back and bring my friends with me.

Good food, clean place and good service<br/>They take bookings, preferred we a group. We were a group of 5 ppl. The person who greated and served was really friendly. Price for food was not bad. Highly recommend their ribs, oyster & jade dumplings. Only wish the lemon chicken was crispier and bowl of rice comes in a bigger serving. Will be back again.

Very fresh ingreidents and very very delicious food as well. Also they have a very lovely and very nice waiter. The coffee is good too. Overall，they gives a new taste of Chinese cuisine with a lot of creativity and patient. Thanks for using fresh ingreidents to make the cuisine，it's worth it.

Faultless, great food reasonably priced lunch menu. Need to go back in the evening to try the charcoal grill. Been here 4 times now and had something different and every times been a winner.

Char Coal is one of our new favourite restaurants in Albany  - we have ordered takeaway several times since they opened recently.  ALWAYS great food and service, large portions, and very reasonable prices.  <br/><br/>Most recently we ordered (takeaway) Ribs, Jade Dumplings, and Kong Pao chicken. <br/>All dishes were delicious, but the ribs in particular were off the planet.  Succulent and juicy with meat that was almost falling off the bone.<br/><br/>Highly recommended - We will be back.

A lovely cafe style resto serving modern Chinese cuisine. Awesome ambience and lovely couple owners. highly recommend the beef dish on the menu as well as their white gourd tea. LARGE portions.

Amazing food, especially loved the lemon chicken. Found this place by mistake and it is great. Every meal we had was yummy. Good to come in the group so you can try lots of the menu.

Awesome food, so fresh and yummy! Nice presentation. Cozy and warm here with such friendly staff. Just like talking with friends :) Easy to find a carpark! Must try!

At last, some desent chinese restaurant.<br/>They have good barbie and you won't smell like barbie after meal. And they serve Fresh oysters...... my measurement of freshness is still alive 1 sec before it is served and this is it . They have FRESH OYSTERS.<br/><br/>Service is above standard and the atmosphere is modern cafe like.<br/>I enjoy myself so much here