Bilal — Restaurant in Melbourne

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It had been a long time since I ate mandi. Seeing great reviews of this restaurant, I proceeded to order a dish. Suffice to say, it left me a little unsatisfied. Read on to find more.

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Mandi Rice Lamb ($22.88) was ordered. It arrived in time. Also, the box looked big. Delicious smell emanated from the box when I opened it. It was packed with biggish chunks of lamb, and underneath those pieces was a sea of rice, cooked with perfection. With 3 pieces of sliced cucumber and a few sprigs of rocket thrown in as an afterthought with dressing, and a little container with dip.

About the meat, half of it was just bones with little meat and cartilage, and the remaining 2 pieces were well-made meat. I liked the lamb, but it was dry, and could've been done better. The rice was very well made, had some flavours, but too much for me. The dip was excellent! The dip helped me finish the dish, not exaggerating here.

My biggest gripe with the dish was that it was almost there, but not fully there. I've had mandi in other places, and this one fell a little short. Nonetheless, I'd still like to try their other mandis, and maybe they'll be better. Who knows?

Dish ordered-

Mandi Rice...

Hello,

I went there on the 14th of February for lunch.

Ordered:

Dosa Biryani Samosa Samosa Chaat

Following is what I found wrong with the restaurant:

Unclean cutlery: I got it changed Samosa chaat was served in a greasy plate. I asked the waitress to change it, she went back and moved the samosa chaat in another plate and said last plate was greasy cause it was made in the kitchen or something along those lines and kept arguing too. I paid for it but left as it as can be seen in the pictures i.e. paid for nothing Dosa was not up to the mark Rude Staff: On showing how bad things were and that this is not how things must be, waitress said, "we serve people every day and know how it should be". A fantastic response :)

I can live with sub-par food taste and even unclean cutlery as I know it can be a very difficult business to run BUT staff being rude specially when you are the one that is paying? Thats a big no no. I would not go back to this place even if it was the last restaurant standing in Melbourne.

Advice to the owner: Please train your...

The best Mamak food defiantly recommended by a Mamak!

Attention Malaysians, Singaporeans and all other Mamak food lovers. If you are on the search for authentic homestyle Mamak aka Tamil-Muslim food in Melbourne, your quest stops here. As a true-blue Mamak bred on Tamil-Muslim food, I have found it quite hard to find homestyle food.

The food here at Bilal is right out of flavourtown! It's perfectly, almost as delicious as my mum's food. Riffing on the chef's own Tamil-Muslim heritage, the food is aromatic, rich and affordable. In fact, about half of the extensive yet meaningful menu is Mamak and focuses on delicious, hearty, much-loved traditional food that Tamil-Muslims cook at their homes.

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