8 Sisters Cafe and Grill — Restaurant in Victoria

Partner and I were searching for another restaurant but failed to find it so stopped in at 8 Sisters Cafe and Grill instead.

Wanted to sit outside but it was a very warm day and there wasn't much in the way of shade cover. However, upon walking inside (the atmosphere was ok) there were quite a few diners and the noise was a dull roar, as well as this they had the fire going (on a nearly 30 degree day!). The heat and noise was rather stifling, so opted to follow the original plan and sit outside and deal with the sun.

I ended up choosing the halloumi burger and partner got the chicken parmi, each of us ordered a beer to quench our thirst. Went to order and the poor girl behind the counter had no idea what she was doing, in the end a more experienced worker had to come to the rescue.

Drinks and food came out relatively quickly and looked nice and fresh. The inexperienced server brought our meals out with a lovely smile but unfortunately no cutlery or napkins 😋. I jumped up to grab some but only made it as far as the door. The other staff member was on top of it (thank you!) and handed me the required items in a Halloween pumpkin trick or treat container 🤔.

Meals were alright, nothing remarkable but definitely edible and the sizes were perfect. The halloumi burger was warm with bright, fresh looking ingredients and looked inviting as hell! The chicken parmi was cooked well and looked moreish, with a salad on the side which was not just your boring run of the mill garden salad it's usually served with. Unfortunately both meals were strangely lacking in flavour, which was the opposite of expectations... It was odd, like someone had muted our taste buds, the imagery was there in all it's glory, but the flavour was a vague memory you couldn't quite grasp. Also - chippies were a little dry.

Overall the meals were bland but looked great, were cooked nicely and well portioned. Staff were friendly enough and although the price was a little expensive it was by no means outrageous. The real winner for me though was the insanely cool luenig-esque artwork along the building, definitely brought a fun and quirky vibe...

I did not want to write this review but then I thought it will be helpful for other Nepalese customers who will visit this restaurant in future thinking they will get good Nepalese cuisine.

Momo- the size of momo was very small, less than average. Also you will need to find the meat inside as 80% is flour and 20% meat. You ll just feel chewing flour. Not to mention no taste at all.

Chowmein/noodles- First of all I was surprised by the price of chowmein. One plate cost 28$ which I believe is very expensive as you get noodles/chowmein for 14-17$ anywhere else. Very average taste, I did not find any cabbage, capsicum or chickpea inside. No smokey flavor so I believe this is just plain noodles. Noodle is very average nothing special with taste and you get a lot of onion in the dish. Total rip off for 28$.

Slow cooked pork burger- Also very average, did not find it tasty at all. I have had slow cooked pork many times and this is the worst of them.

And, when I went to pay the bill at the end, the server/cashier who was also Nepalese asked me how was the food? I told her the truth and she called her senior. Than came another Nepalese women who started defending right away rather then acknowledging the customer review. When I told her about the pork burger, she asked me did you have slow cooked pork burger before? which I found totally insulting. Also when I asked why is the momo so small and there s hardly any meat, she started saying we cater to foreign customers more that’s why we serve soy sauce with momo which I did not understand how it answers my question.

I believe when you open a restaurant and serve people, they come in, trusting you to spend their hard earned money. I do not think if customer don’t like your food, being rude is the way to go. If I was in her place, I would have listened to the customer and acknowledged the problem and said sorry for the experience and promise to make it better. It’s no brainer that the lady is not a professional.

I do not recommend this...

I definitely will not be back, I had such an awful experience here. A few years ago I went and the food was bland and I left with food poisoning, but I wanted to give it another go today. My partner and I arrived 2 hours before they closed for lunch. He went inside and advised them we had a table outside, the waitress brought out menus and cutlery. This venue has table service. We waited for an hour for someone to come and take our order, we saw they were cleaning tables inside so gave them time as we thought they might be busy. We finally went inside and the waitress told us she forgot about us. We ordered our lunch, $90. Our drinks came out and they gave my partner a different drink to what he ordered. Then the food. They forgot a part of his meal and had to go back to cook it, and I got a curry that was so dry and bland. The momos were delicious at least. My papadums came out and they were drenched with oil. I ended up spilling oil all over my new clean clothes when I picked them up, despite dabbing them with a napkin and trying to shake the oil off. Whenever the waitress would bring out a part of our order - she wouldn’t look at us or say anything, just put the food down and walked away. It was 20 minutes until they closed for lunch and we were so upset we decided to leave. My partner went to get us takeaway containers and they had locked the doors. I hate leaving bad reviews but I felt like crying as I left, it was just awful and we weren’t compensated at all for...