Ambarsari Dhaba — Restaurant in Melbourne

We are not the type of people to ever write reviews, let alone bad ones. But I’ll take some time out for this. We have been ordering from this restaurant for some time, and always received burnt/uncooked naan. But let it go because it gets busy sometimes and mistakes happen. But, for the last few times, the delivery took more than 2 hours, and the food was cold and the naan worse than usual. We ordered a couple months ago for a special occasion, and the food didn’t come for over 1.5 hours so we called. They simply refused to acknowledge that they even received the order and never once apologised. After 2 hours, we had to drive down to the restaurant but this lady kept repeating the same thing over and over. We literally had to cook our dinner at 10:30pm. We thought this was a one time thing as miscommunication and confusion happens. This time, we ordered at 7:00pm and the expected delivery time was 8:35pm, which we were okay. Close to 9pm, and no sign of the food, we called to get an update but the same lady just said that they never received the order. Their “go-to excuse” any time they make a mistake, not to mention she never apologises. She told us she’ll call us back in 1 minute to sort this out, but after 15 minutes, we had to call them ourselves. It was like she was trying to get out of the situation somehow. Extremely unprofessional and rude. Upon calling, she repeated the same thing, that they never received the order. But as I speaking to her, the delivery person knocked at the door. Now, if they didn’t get the order, how come the delivery guy appeared on the door with our food? When I told her, she maintained her excuse and I had to hang up because she literally was not even listening to me. It’s like she has no idea what is even going on. This restaurant should really hire a better customer service representative if they want to keep going and learn to take responsibility, it’s not that hard. If I could give this place a 0 rating, I would, never coming back to this nightmare. Do....

Honestly at first the place seemed great and everything seemed fine and dandy. Once I started paying attention to what was served to me on my platter I realized the god forsaken food I had received. First there were literally ants crawling along my table so much so that they had crawled onto my food. I had also noticed the chicken was under cooked, (if it was any other type of meat maybe it would be forgivable but to do such to chicken is a serious health risk). The chefs seem unprofessional and should definitely not be working there, their kitchen setup is horrendous and they serve second hand food to people or just defrost whatever they had. If you're looking for a place to serve you vintage Indian food, its not here and you're better off eating elsewhere.

Edit to the owners response: “Dearest” Owner, the cleanliness and functionality of your establishment is completely a sham. You adhere to nothing, and something more to add, you had to cover up this review with fakes. Your whole restaurant model could very well be shut down on multiple health and safety hazards and if that doesn’t test the “cleanliness” well then %&*% me, because then I don’t know what will.

A MESSAGE TO ALL READING THIS REVIEW - It is blatantly obvious that looking and judging by the speed of four positive reviews which is honestly absurd because a customer who is usually pretty happy, therefore has nothing to complain about wouldn’t have to write a review especially 4 in a day, wow what a miracle 4 positive reviews to cover one honest review! Don’t trust this establishment, it’s a cash grab, a scam and that’s the honest truth. The way they handle their equipment or even the fact there are literally flies and ants all over the area. If you don’t decide to heed this warning just look around the restaurant if you don’t spot several things wrong with the place then personally...

I had dinner here with a friend one recent Friday night. It took two attempts with two people to even make a booking due to poor English speaking staff. Within 3 hours of eating I had diarrhoea and painful stomach cramps from the butter chicken. I reported it and they didn't give a flying toss. They didn't even tell the kitchen! The service is lousy, with staff barely speaking to customers, and certainly not clearly - instead they prefer to mumble and hope we understand. When arriving sometimes the restaurant is unattended and there isn't any bell to ring. The hours on Google don't match the hours of the restaurant - they don't open until 5:30pm. The music is also played way too loudly and isn't adjusted properly to suit the ambient noise.

I did BYO wine and they don't even have wine glasses! No ice buckets either so the wine gets warm. What sort of shoddy operation caters to BYO but doesn't supply the needed equipment? If I'm paying corkage and you're not even opening the bottle nor supplying proper glasses, what am I paying for? When I visit I'm made to feel like I'm not wanted, like speaking English is a hassle for staff and like they'd rather not have the business.

The thing that irritated me the most however (even despite the food poisoning), is the fact they serve customers water out of disposable plastic cups - even though the kitchen needs to wash dishes anyway. The worst environmental decision of all, let alone how terrible water tastes being drunk out of plastic. I shudder to think how much landfill this restaurant has created over its years of operation. It's clear they much prefer for people to do take away than eat in. Perhaps I'll do...