3 Idiots — Restaurant in Melbourne

I'm not sure where I should start! We booked a table for 2 in advance. We paid a table booking deposit of $20 per person at the time of booking, which was refundable up to 48h in advance. The cost of the bill was amended as a result. Smart idea, because only true genuine customers would spend the amount. It ensured that they didn't lose business as a result of no-shows. Anyway, when we first walked in, we were greeted and given the option to choose our table, which I really appreciated. As we sat down, we were provided the QR code and asked for our vaccination status - ✔️ on COVID protocols! Menu had a good variety! Choosing from the snacks was a little tough, everything seemed so good! We had the Murgh Tikka and Calamari65, in the end. Oh wow..! The Calamari65 is one of a kind. ✔️ on the snacks! Mains: we were in the mood for non veg so we chatted with the person serving our food. He suggested the lamb dish and the fish / prawns dish.. but I had my eye on the homemade chicken dish. So we ordered: Homemade Chicken & Barra/Prawn curry. Another wow! We wiped the plates! So good! ✔️ on the mains! Dessert: hard to decide as the options looked so good.. to choose between Saffron Pinacotta and Sizzling Brownie.. the choice was tough, but some Instagram posts were due, so we ordered the Sizzling Brownie! Yumyumyum! After dessert was done and my partner had stepped away, I was approached by the team members to check in that food was ok? I confirmed yes! One of the team members was one of the original 3 idiots 😃 She sat down with us to have a chat and wow'd us again, telling us that all the recipes are from each of their families! That everything they make, they make from scratch, including the basics like, peeled onions, ginger garlic paste, garam masala...! That their own staff's health and mental wellbeing was a priority. That they lovingly created every dish that they served. We were so content after the meal, thanks to the food served and the story shared. Kudos man! We are waiting for folks to come and then will...

I totally agree with a review from another guy called Ash Vik here. I don’t go around putting bad reviews for people because I run businesses myself. We had a bad experience here previously whereby we came in with a party of six people and had a quite a lavish meal. Towards the end, the owner rushed us out of the restaurant because they wanted to get a second seating in. On that occasion, I did not say anything because everyone has an off day. Today we were celebrating two birthdays. Having gone through that experience in the past, I was aware that time could be an issue again and we came into the restaurant on time at 6 pm. I made sure that we were ready to order so that there was no delay. After the drinks, we waited for about 10 minutes before anybody could take our order. The food served was pretty average. Then we had another gap of about 10 minutes before somebody came to take an order for the desserts. Towards the end of our meal at around 7:30 pm, as the desserts were being served, the owner/manager said that our tea would be served in a takeaway cups because we had run out of time. I was staggered because looking at the size of the cups, it would have taken us two minutes to drink them. We ended up cancelling the order for the tea and left in a rush because we obviously felt unwelcomed here. What was most interesting was that there was nobody even waiting to take our table and there were multiple tables which were still empty and mind you, this is a fairly small restaurant.

When I provided the feedback, it was obviously extremely unwelcome and the owner got really defensive.

This left a really bad taste in our mouth.

We dine out regularly and I’ve never experienced this before. This is not the place for a relaxing fun evening....

This… is it. That’s it. The best Indian restaurant in Melbourne. I don’t even need to go to the rest of ‘em.

You can TASTE that the spices are ground in-house. The freshness and aromas are absolutely unmatched. And this dance continues from your first bite all the way to your last.

Samosa Chaat: Man oh man… my mouth’s watering typing this. The SPICE. The perfect marriage of sweet, sour and spicy! Lemme tell you - a lot of restaurants get that tamarind chutney wrong. They make it too sour and it ruins the overall flavour of the dish. NOT these guys, though. They know the art of balance very well. The samosas stay crispy throughout jbtw none of that soggy nonsense. 10 stars.

Butter Chicken: Absolutely fantastic. If you’re tired of having glorified sweet cream in the name of butter chicken, you’re going to bow down to whoever created this recipe. They KNOW what’s up. The creaminess and spices come together in the most PERFECT way to create a harmonious overall flavour of pure LOVE. My only complaint is that I wish there was more space in my stomach for 3 servings of this stuff. Get the garlic naan to sop up this delicious curry.

Sizzling Brownie Dessert: LORD have mercy this made me miss home so much. Beautifully fudgy brownie with a generous helping of hot chocolate sauce, with vanilla ice cream. FANTASTIC dessert to end your meal with. There’s something about a good brownie a la mode man… the hot, the cold, the molten chocolate....