ROTI BAR — Restaurant in Melbourne

Saturday Unlimited Lunch on Indian Traditional Banana Leaf

Roti Bar servers fresh hot food (everyday). I visited the place many times during working days. I always wanted to visit on Saturday. Saturdays are special as they serve unlimited South Indian food (in little bit Malaysian style).

Serving include Rice, Daal, two curries (mostly made in same style), one dry fried item (we got bitter guard fry), one veggie and raita. Everything served hot and fresh.

Plane had a live DJ playing Bollywood song, mostly which energies the ambience. Small place which becomes crowded on Saturday. Place has outdoor seating. We sat outdoors as it was a good weather. Prefer seating indoors as food gets cold pretty quickly.

Staff is friendly and quick.

Why Banana Leaf?

Banana leaves have been used for ages as a serving plate. If you go towards southern India, you will find that they mostly use these leaves for serving food. Often, these leaves are considered sacred & pure and this is the reason why most of the times prasad is served to the deities in banana leaves. People in southern India still serve food on a banana leaf to their guests on special occasions and festivals. These leaves are said to be rich in antioxidants called polyphenols, which are also found in green tea and some leafy vegetables, and can prevent a number of lifestyle diseases. One of the major reasons why this leaf is used to serve food is that they are large in size, and can be cut in different sizes and placed on a platter of any shape. Also, you will be surprised to know that these leaves have a wax-like coating, which not just makes them easy to clean, but increases the taste of dishes as well.

Cons: (reduced one star)

The serving team serves a lot of food in first serve. You either end up over eating or mostly eating the food. My only suggestion to Roti Bar is to serve smaller portion during second serve. Encourage people not to waste food. I saw nearly every plate has good amount of food wasted which could be size of a persons meal. Serving required portion could reduce wastage and also increase...

I’ve been looking forward to coming here since seeing on Instagram reel while back in Sydney.

Everything would have been going smoothly if the management paid attention to a very important detail which is indicating To Pay At The Counter (Now) place the word Now!!!

I was planning to order more after my meal so I assumed pay at the counter can be done afterwards before leaving instead of having to pay several times.

Instead I waited in hunger and exhaustion since I’ve walked all the way from southern cross station.

I was so pissed off when I was told that the food only arrives after paying at the counter. The table next to me got their food first after I’ve been there about 5 minutes earlier than them.

YOU COULD HAVE INDICATED TO PAY NOW AT COUNTER IN THE CHECKOUT. Instead the app stated the Food is being prepared which clearly wasn’t and I was waiting.

This was a horrible customer experience due to their poorly installed I.T system.

Thankfully the hostess or floor staff and other teammates did everything they could to rectify the situation but by then I had already lost my appetite.

Never have a system where it can stress a hungry customer off especially members of the media.

I will return in the future and consider placing Roti Bar in our Best Indian Food in Melbourne content but for now please fix your payment system with proper instructions.

Lastly, spicy goat curry wasn’t spicy at all. It did not have the kick I was expecting, food tasted average due to lack of pedas and 99% of the people were non Caucasian so you can bring the spice level up a notch please.

Other than that the staff are helpful and accommodating they work very hard to make sure things run smoothly including kitchen and floor staff. Well...

I can’t believe that this gem serves authentic banana leaf rice in Melbourne just like how it would be served in Malaysia!

This place gets extremely busy. It opened at 11am and we came on a Saturday at 11:15. The restaurant was already 90% full and there was 5 people ahead of us. Recommend coming at or just before opening time, otherwise you will be waiting awhile as the que only got longer and longer.

Because we arrived just before the rush, we were seated relatively quickly in my opinion (around 15min) but we got the dud back seat on the right of the cashier next to the que of customers. This proved to be a bit of an issue at the start as after we ordered our banana leaf rice, we were waiting around 15min+ for the service staff to come around and serve the various dishes that accompanied the banana leaf rice. Luckily we caught the attention of staff and they served us immediately.

Basically how this works (if you ordered banana leaf rice), you get a banana leaf and 2 types of protein (usually chicken). Servers come around with rice, papadams, various curry sauces (dahl and fish), 3 types of spiced vegetables (usually potato, cabbage, peas), sambal, dried chillis and yoghurt sauce. You can pick and choose which of these you want but we had a bit of everything. It is also unlimited (except the protein) so they will come back to see if u want a top up of anything. We also ordered the plain roti and teh tarik ice. I can honestly say everything was utterly delicious. We left with our bellies...