Bombay velvet bar and restaurant — Restaurant in Victoria

I realise that in certain areas of regional Victoria, it's a gamble to enter an Indian restaurant expecting great food, service, and atmosphere. Sometimes you get lucky... and other times, you accidentally stumble across Bombay Velvet in Mount Beauty. Now, before anyone starts to roll their eyes and think this is just another dissatisfied customer come keyboard warrior, I would invite them to scroll down through the other reviews to qualify exactly what I'm sharing here.

It's a confused mess of country style furniture adorned with a variety of Indian paraphernalia and artwork that never really seems to work? There is a large screen monitor highlighting what appears to be an Indian music selection, but it's frozen on the menu screen, which makes no sense? A huge monitor dominating the back wall of the establishment, and yet it displays a frozen menu? I should have seen this as a sign for what was about to come later in our night while dining here. The furniture is basic but comfortable enough to sit for 30-45 minutes for most able bodied guests. The problem is, most guests, while I was there, waited at least 45mins for their meals?... The entire venue seems poorly maintained and not particularly clean either. The cutlery was definitely not clean. While waiting more than 45 minutes for my meal, I read through the different reviews warning others of the cutlery. So, I decided to test mine by wiping on my napkin. Sure enough, it left a disturbing yellow stain. I handed all of my table's cutlery back to a staff member requesting clean replacements, which never came. Yes, that's right, the entire table's cutlery never returned that night? Instead, we had to use the serving spoons and bread selections to eat our meals when they finally arrived. It was messy, to say the least. Having waited 10 minutes without replacement cutlery, I walked over to the kitchen door, since the front counter was now abandoned and I was starting to wonder if the staff had left us? But upon peering through the kitchen, it made more sense how and why these things were happening... organied chaos would be a nice way of describing what was occurring in their. Staff appeared to be frantically fumbling around, not exactly making any progress on any one meal order, talking loudly to each other, pointing to things yet still nothing being completed or attended to. After around 2 minutes knocking on the door a staff member answeredand nodded in response to a gentle reminder about our cutlery and then shook their head and returned to the kitchen without actually providing me with new cutlery or any indication of replacements coming?... I returned to the others on my table and explained we may not see our cutlery and possibly our meals for a very long time. So, while sitting a little longer, I read some more scathing reviews. One vehemently warning not to use the bathrooms. Intimating they were like something out of a crime scene. To the point they even posted a video of how unclean and uninviting it was. So, I warned the others to hold it in until we leave... whenever that was going to be. I walked around the restaurant while waiting for the counter to be served by the now absentee staff... and noticed carpet stains, dirty bench tops, marks on the walls, and light fittings that were faulty and borderline hazardous? At this point, I knew we weren't in Kansas... this really felt like India and Dehli Belly were now a very real possibility?

Food: After several reminders over the course of an hour and one of the members of my table group threatening to leave with a full refund, our meals started to arrive in a completely confused manner. First, my entrees arrived, although the Samosas were still frozen in the middle. Several other tables complained about the same issues with their entrees. So, back to the kitchen, they went and didn't return for another 15 minutes.

I could go on about the complete lack of care and service here... instead, I'll suggest you seek out a 'better' alternative dining experience like the...

!!!!!ALERT!!!!!! Our visit to the restaurant with a group started off on a disappointing note. Initially, we felt the welcome was a bit lacking, as the staff seemed distant and didn't even said HI or Hello. We should have walked away at the same time but it was our bad day…Despite this, we proceeded to order our food and opted for tea, which surprisingly came in disposable cups despite us dining in.

The main dish, the Biryani, was not up to our expectations. The rice seemed plain and the chicken curry tasted somewhat stale, which was disappointing. When we requested Raita, we were informed it wasn't included, which we found unusual for a traditional dish like Biryani.

We also ordered Butter Chicken, but unfortunately, it didn't meet our expectations either. The chicken had an off-putting smell, and when we asked about it, the response from the staff was not very helpful or accommodating.

One aspect that particularly bothered us was observing inconsistent treatment based on customers' backgrounds. We noticed a difference in how they interacted with us compared to other patrons, which left us feeling uncomfortable.

while we had high hopes for enjoying a meal that reminded us of home, our experience fell short. The service was not as welcoming as we had hoped, and the quality of the food did not match our expectations. For these reasons, we would caution others, especially those looking for an authentic South Asian dining experience, to consider...

PLEASE DON’T VISIT. This is one hell of a food I have ever had in my life. If I would had a chance to rate it NO STAR then yes that would be my rating. This review is completely on food what we received today. We ordered chicken and lamb biryani and it was disgusting 🤮. Completely flavourless, I can really explain how it completely ruined our dinner. I really don’t know how this restaurant is holding 4.1 rating despite serving such worst food ever. Please I request for anyone who is reading this review to stay away on biryanis from this restaurant, not sure about other foods.

I can also see handful of reviews under different person name but the whole review is exact copy to each other including punctuation. If someone is trying to fake the reviews I feel so sorry for such tries. I have mentioned this here because I fell for that so please keep an eye on who is fooling us.

PS after reply from restaurant: I believe irrespective of any biryani it has to be eatable. I couldn’t compare that to sambar and rice but still the consistency remained the same sambar and rice would be far better.

Being a business be respectful for even if it’s a community of one person or more. I don’t see minimum culture of showing respect for customer who have lost 50$ for nothing. Now I can assure why other people have written such reviews on behaviour.

And yea our 50$ went to bin for nothing. Please keep your 20$ offering.

Thank you for...