Little Buddha — Restaurant in Melbourne

Wow, wow and wow. I live in St kilda and I dine and eat out a lot. All my family and friends will tell you this because that’s what I love to do. I decided to take my friend here on Thursday night after our squash game at MSAC. It was kinda late for us to have dinner but our game was delay.

Anyways, I have eaten at this restaurant a few times but haven’t being back since 2 years now. We were greeted by a guy name Teeka as we approached the front door.

He was extremely friendly, accommodating, professional, his smile and bubbly personality was just so inviting and infectious. We decided to sit outside because it was a beautiful warm night. There were several cute little tables outside full of customers eating already.

We sat down, he went inside to get a few things, served us water, gave us the menu, explain all the specials, ask us what we feel like eating, told us his recommendations and explain his reasons why, and then allowed us time to look over the menu while he gets our drink order. He really blew my mind. He was very impressive. He was extremely passionate and on point. One word for Teeka, FANTASTIC!!!!

Teeka’s customer service was bloody amazing. I watch him greet every single customer that came in. He did the exact same customer service he gave us, to the next customer, the following customer after that and continue to maintain this right to the end when we left. He is naturally gifted and his professionalism and the ability to make us feel at home and enjoy ourselves, deserves to be recognised. Truely an amazing night.

I was just amazed, how hard he worked, multi task and not even loose his cool. The place is cute, small, romantic and it was quite full too. Love love love Teeka and I can’t speak highly of him. If I had a restaurant I will poach and offer him a job straight away on the spot. I sat there and observe everything and watched him work. i saw how passionate, professional and just down to earth kinda person he was.

Witnessing this unfold in front of me, I was so excited to get the food. The food arrived and OMFG!!!! Guys, the food was so tasty, delicious, and full of flavour. We Absolutely enjoy every mouthful. It was Devine, fresh, and just so good. We Highly recommend the food here. I will be so proud to bring more family, friends and even work colleges to this restaurant because I know the food and service will be on point and excellent.

I actually went back With my partner on Easter Friday (which was tonight) and I can’t fault this place at all. We had the best experience for a romantic date night and we will be there regular customers . Little Buddha has now become one of my favourite restaurant in our local area. It’s definitely one of my top places on my list. I would highly recommend them. People go down and check it for yourselves. Amazing food and extraordinary service. If your there ask for Teeka!! Keep up the fantastic work guys and...

I'll leave the negative aspects of my review until the end. I think it only fair to point out the positives first.

The food here is delicious. There are a few different things on the menu here than in other Thai restaurants, and everything I tried was really good. I had the chicken curry puffs and a mango chicken with coconut rice. Everything was good enough to want to come back again. Parking is easy enough, and it's set in a quaint little area in Middle Park. It seems to be a local gem, as the guy doing everything, seemed to know so many people, so that's great as it speaks a lot to the business and the food.

With that said ... I know staffing issues can be a problem in restaurants right now; I get that. But I first booked here a few weeks ago, and when the guy on the line said that we'd need to be patient as he's the only staff member, we cancelled the booking. We tried it again now, and it's the same issue. Surely you can hire your niece or your neighbour or just someone, to help bring out food to speed things up. They were slammed with take away orders (I felt like disconnecting the phone line, lol, as patrons were put on the back burner a bit) so that did make things slower, and granted, the guy running around was busy and trying his best. But don't come here if you're in a rush. If you want a slow, long meal, then this is fine. I didn't like how he told one lady sitting down (who'd been there 20 minutes waiting for their order to be taken) that he would tend to the takeaways first. That doesn't sit well with me. But ... the food is good, and in winter when it's cooler (there was only fans spinning and they weren't using the A/C), if they have more staff, I'd definitely try...

We had dinner there last night for my daughter's 13th birthday with 6pm booking for 7 people. Staff were friendly when taking orders and then they seemed running off their feet when it became busy at 7pm with more customers and take aways. It took a long time for food to come out and it did look like take aways got the priority before patrons in the restaurant which was mentioned in other reviews. In the end, one of the dishes we ordered didn't come out despite staff were reminded once. Dishes were on the small serve side, the pork in two crispy pork dishes were not crispy, dishes were not hot enough and my daughter had wonton soup large size with 4 wontons only. The main concern was she vomited and had diarrhoea last night till 6am in the morning which led to missing school and sports activities. It is really concerning and disappointing. The only thing I could think of was the prawn and pork wontons were undercooked because of the staff shortage. Also I brought sticky date buding for her birthday but didn't end up having it because no staff were available to heat it up and bring more cutlery for us. Otherwise Great parking and great little place not many inside...