Bombay on the Beach — Restaurant in Hobart

September 2023 update: We ordered again recently and ran the gauntlet with Bombay...

Put our order in online at 3:45pm for a 4:45-5:30pm delivery.

4pm they call and advise the website is not working properly and despite selecting delivery, we were not charged the $8 delivery fee, then asked my wife to give her CC details over the phone...(great)

4:30pm - They call to advise it will be between 5:15 and 5:30 delivery, we thank them for the update and look forward to our food.

5:40pm - My wife calls and asks where the food is, they say the delivery driver has just left and it should be at ours in 5mins. Great!

5:50pm - I call them back to ask where the food is, they advise its en-route and has just left... I remind them they told us this at 5:40pm and we live 1km away (2min drive)... so if the food did leave at 5:30pm it's now cold.

6:05pm - I call back and advise them I will come down and pick it up, and that I'd expect a delivery refund and we were not impressed, we have 2 kids who've been waiting for food since 5pm (remember we ordered before 4pm)

6:10pm - I got in my car to go and collect the curry, delivery driver arrives. I begrudgingly accept the delivery, I let the delivery driver know how unimpressed we are, but reinforce I'm aware its not their fault but to pass on feedback. I advise I'll be updating my review, so people can know what they are really like.

The food was cold when it arrived, we ordered 2x Indian Butter chicken (medium) and 2x Naan and 2x saffron rice. (Which was about $80 with the delivery fee)

1 butter chicken was super mild, no heat at all. The other was super spicy to the point the kids couldn't eat it. Naans were cold and rubbery and the rice was cold.

Staff called my wife around 6:30pm and said they were very sorry for the stuff up, they advised that the manager would call us the following day to organise a refund or a free meal as compensation.

Well... that call never came

These guys once had great food, the customer service was always shocking...but the food was great.

Now the food has lost its edge and the customer service has deteriorated even further.

My advice... give these guys a miss!

(Original review) Let me be clear and explain why I gave 3 stars and not 5. The food here is without a doubt 5 stars!

Nearly every time I order a delivery they are missing an item, now normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but when you're charging close to $7 for a Naan, you get a bit annoyed when it gets left behind.

At least 3x I've ordered from here, only to have food delivered to my door and be missing items. To be fair, each and every time they have made the item available for me and thrown in a free drink or something else to say sorry.

However when you have hungry kids and have already waited 1hr plus for your food, when items are missing it means you then have to either drive down to collect your items (After already paying for delivery) or sit and wait another hour while your food gets cold and wait for another delivery.

Staff are friendly and always address any issues.

Prices are high, however the food quality is also very high.

Highly recommend the 'Indian Butter Chicken' they offer two variants, pay the extra $2-3 for the Indian/Traditional option, it's well worth it. The garlic and cheese naan's are also amazing (hence why we get so frustrated when they don't...

Awards for this place were done by Restaurant Guru 2020 best food delivery, Menulog restaurant award 2020, Tripadvisor 2019 centre of excellence awards and lastly best food at blackman bay winner of the year 2020 awards but NO AWARD after that nothing and I wonder why? We were invited by Locals to this Bombay on the Beach Restaurant in a very posh area and ambience was good ONLY. During our 2 hours food service on a weekend, we were a group of friends and family came from Overseas and Melbourne and our host literally at different points felt embarrassed of the restaurant staff attitude and delivery of the food service. Our host a beautiful couple had to get up from their chair on multiple occasions goto the manager and politely asked her on many occasions for drinks and cutlery. To our suprise, the energetic young manager named Nurpur was more interested in the bar tenders Mocktails abd Cocktails drink presentation and making tiktok videos of the glass from different angles and least bothered about being the front Floor Manger and didn’t even bothered to keep an eye to the details on every table. Food served without cutlery. Our host had to remind them after every dish was served to provide us cutlery and that too took ages. Literally we had to take salad without cutlery with our fingers and the biryani at 1 point as we were all a mix group being ignored on multiple occasions as we were very starving and then lack of the staff attenion to detail. TIP: I would suggest that the old indian guy who was either the owner of the restaurant or the front desk manager to take over AGAIN as this incompetent manager is more concerned about presentation of the bar drinks and not the customers sitting and waiting for that eye contact to tell her things are not working as she think are planned. Very unprofessional attitude of the staff, manager needs to go on professional development training. Requested for tooth pick and my mouth kept opened how one if the indian staff served I couldn’t believe it when I saw the guest was served on the palm of the hand as if we are sitting at a roadside open street food cafe somewhere in Asian countries. WORST Experience I would recommend avoid such overpriced restaurant with unpleasant attitude of the staff and the manager. Owner needs to change or train the manager and get staff trained. MAKE SURE NEVER INVITE SOME GUEST there. GO ALONE ONLY NOT...

We went to celebrate our sisters birthday , requested to see if they can do anything special for special occasions but said No.

We took the cake , flowers, balloons ourselves and we setup or say laid them on the table ourselves as it was surprise for her. We were only 5 people.

We surprised her we cut the cake and requested them to put in the fridge and later asked them to bring it. They asked if we needed plates, asked for 3 plates and we had desert and went to pay the bill.

To our shock, they charged us $10 for cake corkage saying that they charge this to everyone who brings the cake. It doesn’t make sense ! That was our cake, we setup the table ourselves, we asked them to put it in the fridge while we were having dinner ( they were hesitant). All they did was bright 3 serving plate n cutlery to us.

Had to wait and waved several times to waitress for menu, even though they had only two tables occupied.

Ordered entree, as soon as it arrived , we were not finished with the entree the main dish was brought ! What’s the point of having entree and mains if you don’t know why is it entree and main !

It’s ridiculous how they are robbing people with these extra charges. They charged extra $2 for hot water ! Omg !

No lie the food is amazing, but the portion is too small. Service is ok because the staff they look confused all the time . But these service charge without informing beforehand is ridiculous.

No hard feelings for the staff but the boss n management should stop ripping off people.

$2 for hot water !

Other places do complimentary piece of cake n make people feel welcomed n special on special occasion however these people are ripping off people during their special occasion!

Wasn’t kid friendly at all because they didn’t have space to park a pram beside table. Every time they would bring food they would bring it over the baby , which made us very scared as accidents happens. They were not careful or considerate that there was a baby in the parked pram.

Management needs to pay attention to these things. Food is amazing , the only thing that is keeping this...