Aagaman Indian Nepalese Restaurant: Port Melbourne (Bay Street) — Restaurant in Melbourne

I attended my friends birthday dinner on Monday night at Aagman Indian and I must say I have never experienced such poor service and hospitality as I have at this restaurant. We arrived at 6.30pm, not once for the entire night were we asked if we wanted a drink, we were not offered the menu (we had to ask), not once did anybody attend to our table to check if anyone needed anything, take our order or to clean up the table. We had to ask when we wanted to order Entree's which weren't served to us until after 8pm (1 hour and a half after arrival), then again had to ask to order our mains that weren't served to us until 9.30pm only to be told that we had half an hour to eat because they will be closing (3 hours after arrival), not leaving anytime to do the cake afterwards! Waited over 45 minutes for a Vodka and Pineapple juice twice, the waitresses did not even once acknowledge us, not once! I could literally keep on going how terrible the service really was. Not long after we ordered our mains, a group of 10 people (one of them being a chef at the restaurant who happened to be off that evening) attended the restaurant. Within 10 minutes, their table was FULL of food whilst our table of 8 were left waiting an additional hour for ours. The fact a staff member and his friends were served before PAYING customer's who had been there for over 2 hours already is just appalling! But it gets better, my friends husband then put in a complaint to one of the male waiters whilst we were waiting for our food, explaining that it's not really fair that a staff member can come in and be served right away, have their meals within 10minutes and paying customer's are left waiting for hours (which any paying customer has the right to do when you've been waiting hours), only for the male waitress to then go and tell the large table of 10 people that we had complained! From there, our meals were finally served but then had to put up with the off duty chef and his friends swearing at us loudly in Indian (yes, we understood all of what they saying as our Indian friend's who were with us translated what they were saying about us!!). As if it wasn't already intimidating enough having a large group swearing at us in another language whilst we ate but when we got up to leave, the off duty chef and his group of friends followed us all outside then wanted to fight my friends husband and his friends because we put in a complaint!! I actually could not believe what was actually happening! We were at a restaurant, yet I generally felt like I was in a school ground being picked on by a group of guys. Disgusting behaviour and the most poor service I've ever experienced. Despite the food actually being quite tasty, it's a real shame the staff made it a terrible experience. A let down for the owner by his staff of the restaurant because if it wasn't for them, it probably would have been an enjoyable night! I will never return to this restaurant and will not be recommending this place...

Browsing over the menu online, we thought we'd check out this restaurant as we all love Indian and Nepalese food and the combo is great. There seemed like a lot of variety; some of the "old faithfuls" from Indian restaurants, and also some new-to-us dishes on the Nepalese side.

We walked in and were the first group to dine for the night. It's got a nice decor about it, without being too fancy, and we were warmly greeted and promptly seated at the table. They gave us enough time to browse through the menu after having explained a few dishes, which was helpful, and came to take our orders. Considering we - at that stage - were the only diners, it took a little while for the entrees to come out. Yes, they do Uber or Deliveroo or one of them, but there wasn't plentiful orders coming through at one go.

Eventually the entrees came out and they smelled great and tasted good too. Mine - a salmon dish - was the last to come out. I cut into it, and low and behold, it wasn't salmon (in all honesty, it was the reason for ordering that dish). I could tell this immediately by the colour and was disappointed. The waitress came over and explained they had "run out of salmon" (so early in the night) and they used Baramundi. Firstly, I'm glad it was a fish I could actually eat (because I can't eat all fish) and secondly, why did no one say anything before prepping it?? What if I didn't want it anymore? They asked me - once it was in front of me - if I wanted it still and I actually didn't want it, but refused to keep waiting and waiting for them to cook something new. So I ate it, and luckily it was tasty. I would have thought as goodwill, they might have said, "here's a free beverage", or "we'll take it off your bill", but there was no amends to this.

When the mains came out, they were all delicious and prepared how we requested. There wasn't a whole lot of room on the table for the dishes, but the meal itself was good. The mango chicken was actual mango sauce and so delectable.

The things I didn't like about Aagaman was the way they handled the situation with my entree, and I didn't like how the waitresses/owner would shout out things to the kitchen from inside the restaurant. We'd hear "they're still waiting for ... " often or things to that affect. But what I did like was the taste of the food. It was really good and reasonably priced. The people were friendly and the restaurant was well lit (lamps on your tables) and it had space in it and not cramped like some places can be. Parking might be a problem during the year on busy Saturday nights, but this one - straight after Christmas - parking was easy.

Would I recommend coming here to eat? Yes, I would. And I look forward to coming back again,...

3.5 / 5

Not too many options to choose for a last-minute plan, Aagman topped the list as most of the restaurants shut by 9.00pm.

Already famished after tiring Saturday spent with filing our taxes, paying our bills and putting the final itinerary in place for our 10 days trip that starts on the 27th September, we ordered our food that comprised of Rice, Naan, Malekhu Fish Tikka, Chettinad Chicken, Gulmeyley Lamb Curry.

At 9.00pm it was very crowded and we were sure that the food would either be awesome or Bad.

Gulmeley Lamb was easily the Dish of the Day. Perfectly cooked and flavored.

Chicken Chettinad definitely was tasty but tasted more like a mild version of butter chicken than chicken chettinad...Nevertheless, totally enjoyed it.

The fish tika was perfectly spiced and.grillwd minus the color...Which was such a relief.

Over-all we loved the food here, and definitely the complimentary papad basket.

What we would have ideally liked is a bit of cleanliness after the customers have made a mess of this place.

Plenty to choose for Vegans and Vegetarians. Easy on pocket and very warm and friendly staff. And too our surprise they are a part of Gold Offer too.

It's perfect time for any South Asia Restaurant to be noticed as Melbourne is more open to experiment than usual and.Aagman has the making of making it big but it gives-in to the usual instead of tapping...