壹碗BOWLTIFUL Halal Lanzhou Handmade Noodles Swanston — Restaurant in Melbourne

This is the second time we've visited Bowltiful in 3 weeks. The first time, we were a group of 3 & we had a decent experience & hence decided to take our family over. Our second experience, however was a different story. We were a group of 7, since they only do walk ins as per their Instagram page, we walked in on a Saturday night however they asked us to wait 20-30 minutes. We put our name down & were prepared to wait as we reside an hour away from Box Hill. However much to our disappointment, after the 20-25 wait, the waiting staff walked us over to 2 separate tables. We certainly did not drive 1 hour & wait 40 minutes only to be seated separately. We requested the staff to join a couple of tables & basically try & find a way to help us but they were adamant that tables couldn't be joined. We made peace with this, however the staff continued to be difficult. All of us in the group aren't used to using chopsticks, we asked for forks & she gave us a few. My child dropped his fork accidentally & when we asked for one more fork, one of the staff members adamantly said "we don't have any forks anymore". I just stared at the person blankly as I was shocked & she stared back at me equally adamantly. What restaurant on a Saturday night does not have forks? She didn't even try to assist & my mother in law ended up picking up the fork from the floor, giving it a wipe with a tissue & re using it as we were surprised at their attitude. I understand the table situation may have made their life harder however firstly, staff should have been clear at the start that despite waiting 30 mins to reserve a table, we wouldn't be seated together, secondly, no more forks? Really?

The food was good, predictable and consistent but the service and our experience in general - waiting 30 mins, not getting a table together, them not informing us in advance that we will be needed to sit separately & ultimately - not having an extra fork - all of...

@bowtiful.noodles, Halal Lanzhou Hand-Pulled Noodles.

What we ate & review:

🍜Braised Beef Brisket Noodle Soup 🍜Dry Noodle w/ Braised Lamb Flap 🍢Signature Lamb Skewers 🥙Lanzhou Style Beef & Green Pepper Burger 🥒Homemade Pickles 🥔Shredded Potato Salad 🥤Honey Hawthorne Tea

The noodles were fresh, chewy & nicely cooked. My fave was the Dry Noodle with beautiful, soft and tender braised lamb which pulled apart. So good!! Hot Tip: I recommend eating this straight away as the oil based sauce can solidify.

The Noodle Soup had nice tasty chunks of Beef Brisket, with the soup being on the lighter side as it contains no soy sauce. You can choose if you want coriander & leeks as a garnish or served on the side. There is also chilli oil on the table to spice things up ;)

To compliment your noodles, Bowltiful offers a range of side dishes with your choice of hot and cold. We opted for Homemade Pickles & Shredded Potato Salad. The pickles had a nice tang and a bit of a spicy hit from the surprise chillies. The Potato dish had me curious as I’ve never had it before. Sadly it didn’t hit the mark for me and didn’t know it was raw potato. Therefore, wasn’t to my liking. But you might like it?

Next up is the Specials, being the Signature Lamb Skewers and The Beef & Green Pepper Burger. I was looking forward to the skewers but unfortunately they were a bit tough and quite difficult to bite off the skewer. The burger was full of flavourful beef incased in a pastry like. Our favourite special.

To add to your dining experience, you can see right into the kitchen with views of the chefs making your noodles by hand fresh to...

Update - I used to enjoy Bowltiful Noodles, but unfortunately, the quality has really gone downhill. The service has become noticeably poor, slow, inattentive, and not very welcoming. The food isn’t what it used to be either. Even though they offer different noodle sizes, ordering the same size doesn’t guarantee consistency. The “special sauce noodle” in particular is hit-or-miss—sometimes bland, sometimes lacking sauce entirely.

To make matters worse, they now tack on extra charges for takeaway orders in addition to the usual card surcharge. It’s disappointing to see a place that once stood out for its flavor and value become inconsistent and overpriced. Not worth the visit anymore unless major improvements are made.

Old review- We had tried other locations and had been one of our favours pulled noodle place. Had to try here since it’s a new spot. Went for the first time at this location and it was surprisingly quite nice. Noodle as always, so fresh and good. Had the beef strips which we normally have it with any meal and it was abit of a let down. The other location has best beef strips which comes with a unique taste and seasonings. At this Swanston location it felt like they had done their own new version of beef strips. Rather than savoury it was sweet and bland, found it very unusual. Anyways, the braised beef noodle was amazing. They definitely live up to the noodle with consistency. Might have to work on cleaning the menu a bit. It was quite sticky and gross.

Over all, not so bad. Enjoyed the noodle. Would come back to try other dishes.

Update- pics says it all. Added additional pictures at the...