Ripples Bentleigh Restaurant — Restaurant in Melbourne

⭐️ 9/10 💰 $$ or $$$ (On average we spent about $30-$40 per person for normal dishes but if we have fresh seafood like Crab 🦀 or Lobster 🦞 it will be more expensive, $50-$80 per person) ✨ PRO TIP: 5% CASH DISCOUNT

Ripples is my family’s fave local Chinese restaurant and without a doubt our MOST visited restaurant over the years, I would say we come here at least once a month 😅

As we come here a lot, we know the owner who is also the head chef, he’s really friendly and usually gives us free dessert after our meal. My Dad always says it’s good the owner is also the chef as it ensures the taste of the dishes will always be consistent and a higher standard.

Usually for casual family dinner we will just order normal dishes and we will order Crab noodles or Lobster noodles for special occasions and if we are eating with guests. I’ve actually taken my friends to eat here a few times, if you come just book under “Annie’s Guestlist” (that’s my Mum’s English name and everyone there knows her 😂) I don’t really know any prices for the dishes (as Mum usually pays haha) but here is a list of our fave dishes…

MEATS / OTHER 🥓 Roast meats platter: roast duck, roast pork, Chinese sausage or char siu 🍖 Sweet & Sour pork ribs: make sure you order pork ribs as these are a game changer, I know it means some small bones but the crispiness is soooo good!!! If you are ordering in Chinese it’s 生炒排骨as opposed to 古老肉 🍳Sizzling Mongolian Beef: another MUST ORDER dish every time we come here 🥦 Beef & Chinese broccoli (classic) 🍆 Eggplant claypot (not my fave as I think they use too much hoisin sauce but my fam likes it)

SEAFOOD 🦞 Lobster / 🦀 Crab Noodles: Yum love how the seafood is always cooked well, good flavour and saucy noodles 😍 🦀 Claypot Vermicelli Crab Noodles cooked in XO sauce: not too spicy and nice XO flavour 🐟 Steamed fish: we don’t order it here much but it’s been a bit hit and miss 🍤 Salt & Pepper Prawns: Mum’s FAVE dish and her must order every time 🦑 Salt & Pepper Calamari: yes, we love anything salt & pepper here 🐠 Salt & Pepper Flounder: this is cooked as a whole fish and it’s so crispy 🍲 Seafood and Tofu Claypot: another classic 🍲 Japanese Tofu and Seafood: a different take on the dish above, they use soft Japanese tofu and the seafood is cooked in this egg gravy, I personally LOVE this one

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I went here several years ago when it’d just opened and really enjoyed it, so I was soooo surprised and disappointed to find that it had gone down so far. We had an early-6pm booked dinner for 5 - the first to arrive and right from the start I noticed something was off- the menus were whisked away before we could choose anything, I supposed that most people choose what they wanted from the online menu, so I gave them that one. You can only bring wine with you but they have a drinks menu with whiskey, bourbon, vodka etc but every drink we ordered they had ‘run out of’ apart from whiskey, we didn’t want that. As we were the first people in the restaurant I was surprised they hadn’t re-stocked the bar. We settled for 2 lemon lime and bitters. ONE arrived. The whole meal was almost laughable from then on. We were brought meals we hadn’t ordered, the bowl of fried rice was almost thrown at us, I had to get up and find our own refill of watered down soy after failing to get someone to bring it - the food was so tasteless we needed it- I have to say the size of the mains was very generous- so much so that we took the remaining bits home in the takeaway containers we had to buy, 50c each! I also had to get up and hunt them down. We weren’t offered any dessert, coffee (?) and were bustled out at 8pm on the dot assuming they were trying to fit the next sitting of soon to be disappointed patrons.

The staff were decidedly …… errr rude. It’s the only way to say it. They definitely didn’t make us feel comfortable or even wanted. And I don’t like to bring up the ‘R’ word, or even think about it, but I couldn’t help but notice that we as obviously not Asian, were treated differently. Maybe it was just me 🤷🏼‍♀️

The other thing I found disturbing was that every Chinese restaurant I’ve been to has had a ‘lazy susan’ apparatus on the table so you can all kind of share the main courses- it makes sense as the meals are a good size, as I said, but when we asked we were told you have to order these when you book. How do you know if you don’t know?????

I have friends in wheelchairs who fortunately weren’t with us because they definitely wouldn’t have been able to fit. Is it a case of just making money? Squeezing people in??

All I can say is that I don’t think Ripples read the reviews, or don’t care, but I wish I had.

We will NOT be...

The WORST ever place i've been to. We arrived there for dinner (3 couples and 2 young children), and we straightaway felt unwelcome. The faces of the staff and the elderly owner were clear. If you are NOT ASIAN you are NOT WELCOME. In short we ordered dinner, mains and sides and 1 of the rude staff/old man got annoyed that I haven't ordered my main, when I have ordered 2 plates.

The rudeness was unbelievable and was going on all night, even when they delivered their average chinese food - that you find in any other chinese restaurant - and that here was costing $30/40/50 for a meal!!, especially and when the grey skin looking waitress basically came and 'threw the dishes' on the table. We were absolutely in shock.

And because they couldn't wait for us to leave (we too to be honest!) - the staff was ignoring our requests acting they don't see us, when for example we asked for more water and glasses., the grey lady bring the bill folder and threw it on the table... We were not done with the food and did not asked for the bill yet.

SO partner kept calm and paid the bill for all (we did not even asked for splitting the bill at this stage...), the horror was the lady with no shame and with fake smile dared to ask him while he was paying 'if he is going to leave a tip for the staff...). He said no. Here she got visibly angry and part of the staff stood next to our table, like it's time to leave. We wanted to leave too. So we did, followed by the owner eyes and the staff with a such hate i won't forget. Blah....