Papparich Epping — Restaurant in Melbourne

Updated: First review: 3 stars

New branch in Epping. First time to be in one. A bit of a wait but understandable for a new restaurant and for a Saturday night. The fitout is clean and effective. The food did not disappoint. I had the Nasi Lemak, sizing was sufficient, coconut rice was just right, pricing reasonable. Expect to spend around 25 per person. I'll come back.

Second review: 3 stars I did say I'll come back, this time on a Friday night, food did not disappoint once again. Had the PapaRich chicken and Quail. The chicken was delicate and moorish. (Tip: If a dish is named after a venue, it is usually good.) The Quail crispy and juicy. The only downside was the wait for the dessert and quail. Kitchen need to get dishes out at the same time. A bit awkward to eat while everyone else is still waiting for their meal. I will come back.

Third review: 1 star Came back early Thursday night. The place was yet to get busy. Had the Nasi Lemak again. All good there, had the Quail, this time it was tough and dry, waited long for a noodle dish, everyone had finished their meal before it came out. Kitchen have not figured this out yet. Then dessert, 4 banana fritters, waited too long, almost cancelled the order but we were assured these were coming. Finally these came, the bananas unripe! Not good. We mentioned it at the register and left the fritters barely eaten. We still paid $40 for the dessert, the least they can do is take it off the bill.

Three things, quality, service and price.

If you get 3 of the above you are doing well, 2 is acceptable, getting only 1 is regrettable.

1...

I have been a fan of this place for 3-4 years now. I liked the Asian cuisine & have been here several times. However, my recent experience was all but pleasant.

I, with my wife & 2 kids visited the restaurant at 8:10 PM on a weekday & was immediately greeted by the waitress saying "please be quick, our kitchen closes by 8:30, so you'll need to order in the next 5 minutes". We somehow managed to do that, when they came back saying they do not have enough chicken & that we had to adjust to whatever was in-store. They were not even adaptable enough to swap the options on one of their dishes though the shortage was on their side.

I requested for the entree to be served first but was told they can't do that & would get everything together to the table (as expected, the entree came at the very end). No napkins on table & when asked, the lady got us 3 napkins for the 4 of us!

The food we had was no where as tasty as what it used to be a few months ago. In all, we left with a strong feeling that they somehow wanted to shut shop & get lost as soon as they could for that night & we came in as a nuisance to that plan.

Thanks, but...

Bad experience waiting to get a table at Epping branch. I get it that it's their first week opening their branch in Epping; and they cannot accept booking by phone.

Issue1: We waited in the queue outside the restaurant for 45 minutes. It's winter in Melbourne. There is no heater outside like most of the restaurants in Melbourne.

Issue2: When we finally got a table for 6, we ordered our food. It took a while to get our food. That's fine because there are many customers. But, our orders where mixed up with other customer's order. And because it's already almost 8:40PM, we decided to eat whatever was served to us.

Issue3: One of the staff who's managing the queue and table assignment told us that some of the items in the menu is 50% because she feel sorry for us waiting for 45 minutes outside the cold. But when I have to pay our bill, there's no indication of any discount. I did not complain because I wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible. Attached is the bill for reference.

I wouldn't recommend the place at this point. I don't want anyone to experience...