Bababoi Kitchen & Bar — Restaurant in Melbourne

Never ever again I would dine in nor recommend the place to anyone I know. The experience I and my family had, dealing with the restaurant, especially on the manager level, was nothing short of dissapointed, stressful and completely waste of time.

Purchased a voucher back in March, we booked our seats online through Groupon website but due to unforseen circumstances, we had to cancel the night. We called up 2 hours prior to the time and requested a cancellation. Thought it was all it took but later that night, I found out the coupon was redeemed despite the fact that the dinner was cancelled. After bringing up the matter to Groupon, we was issued another coupon to use, printable version but not online version, hence we could not make another booking online.

We called up again to book for one table at another time. The restaurant did tell us to make the booking through Groupon website for the use of the voucher, but we could not do it per the voucher was redeemed despite we did cancel the use of the voucher previously. After explaining the story, the restaurant told us to bring in the printable voucher and all would be fine. We made the booking, got there on time, just so to be turned down by the manager that the voucher was invalid as my booking was not booked online through Groupon. We were speechless and after half an hour discussion, the restaurant were not able to accomodate and we had to leave.

My questions to the manager of the restaurant are:

1/ If you were so fixtated on the booking to be made online, why did you not tell us over the phone after TWICE we checked up that it was fine as long as we brough the printable voucher?

2/ According to Groupon policy I found out later, the restaurant was responsible on sending out a confirmation email for my cancellation on Groupon, which I did not received at the time, to prevent the voucher to be redeemed which it did. Did you simply forget doing so or was it done on purpose for a shady reason, to claim on something that you should not be entitled to in the first place?

Now, I contact Groupon and ask for my money back on my 2 vouchers. Thank you very much for ruining our hope on a good dinning night out and any good impression we have had by reading the review of your business.

P/S: I have dined in various restaurants by using vouchers purchased from Groupon. As far the voucher concerns, the venue only need to scan the barcode, either on papar or on app, to redeem the voucher. And for the must of making an online booking for the use of vouchers, it NEVER...

Went here for my partners birthday lunch. Disappointing to say the least. There were 8 of us eating, 4 people got served whilst the other 4 of us just sat there hungry, the roti bread came out and we asked where the dahl was ( which is specified it comes with on the menu you shouldn’t have to ask for this ) they looked rather confused and didn’t know we wanted it. Anyway it came out in a TINY little dipping sauce bowl, there was no lentil and chickpea Dahl it was more like 3 lentils shoved into satay sauce. They served the tofu, it was literally cold uncooked tofu with picked stuff on top, when I checked the menu it says “ crispy” so we questioned it, they had no clue at all. Interestingly enough when it came out the first time there were 4 pieces when it came back the second time 2 pieces, when asked why they claim that “ when you want it fried it comes with 2 pieces” most ridiculous explanation I’ve ever heard considering the menu states it’s “ crispy tofu” I didn’t realise we needed to specify that.. imagine serving cold uncooked tofu to customers.. it just gets worse honestly The char kheow tow was tasteless and awful, the rice was ok, the laksa was below average. There were 2 other dishes which were forgotten about by the staff - fried chicken and another rice dish, never came, my partner basically went hungry and got maccas on the way home on his birthday. They told us if we still want the food we have to eat it outside because there closing.

Honestly do yourselves a favour don’t...

Terrible staff, extremely rude, bad attitude and food was fatty, oily and lacked flavour.

Having not tried them before and looked at the menu online, I rang up to place a take-away order to save waiting at the store. The person on the phone was rather rude in telling me they were busy and it would be a long wait, yet refused to give even a very rough time estimate until I placed my order. Upon placing my order, much to my surprise, they said it would be ready in 15 minutes (which I repeated to make sure I heard right).

Upon arriving 15 mins later, the staff member was again quite rude in questioning why I had arrived already (I was on time or even just after) and angrily noted that the food wasn't ready and wouldn't be for a while... but I didn't mind waiting - it's pretty normal for take away! It was only about another 15mins too, so nothing too much.

At home, we disappointingly found that the rendang we ordered was quite bad. It was extremely oily (it settled in the short trip home and the container was half filled with oil) and the 'meat' was mostly fat and grizzle with little actual meat - see photo, which is entirely fat. The Laksa was also not good, having little depth of flavour and was quite watery.

If I could give this place a zero, I would. I've lived in Melbourne CBD for a long time and I've had my fair share of dining experiences and I would say this is the worst experience I've had. I will never,...