Man Bo Restaurant — Restaurant in Victoria

Well where do I start

Went there this evening for dinner with my wife and mother in law. I honestly don’t leave reviews I usually just never go back to places. But this needs to be said.

First of all new management which usually says it all, I understand with covid it has been tough times.

We got there at 6pm a young girl came and gave us menus and took our order, my mother in law who is allergic to gluten asked the waitress some options she didn’t know which was fair enough so she called a guy from behind the bar who happened to be the owner.he Came and spoke to us about some options he had no clue about gluten free etc as the options he gave was gluten. He even said and I quote “ I rather not have your business then risk giving you something that’s got gluten” I was mind blown as the last management had gluten free options and were very accommodating.

It gets better (an hour into service not even offered water)

A lady then comes from the kitchen her name was Rebecca she was amazing she told us that what the owner told us to order is not gluten free at all and gave us some options of what she could do in gluten free. She cooked it and had it out to us asap. But even after all this we got satay chicken sent to the table that wasn’t gluten free the order which the owner previously took. my mother in law almost ate it until I realised wait a minute that’s not what we ordered with the lady that came from the kitchen. Very close call

Pricing (way over priced) I understand inflation atm

Fried rice $28 (what a joke) the rice we got was definitely not a large it barely passed for a small Sizzling beef $34 for a few strips more onion and spring onion than beef Lemon and honey chicken $26 ( how the f**k is rice more than this)

Anyways we went to pay and I gave them some very honest feedback which the owner obviously did not want to hear.

He asked me how was everything and I told him that was the worst experience I have had in a very long times I told him the rice was definitely not a large also he needs to know more about gluten free options. He was very defensive his response was we prefer not to serve gluten free because it’s too risky haha it’s 2022. He took $10 of the bill hahaha what a joke. I even told him not looking for anything free and that he was actually lucky I’m paying the bill. He replied with yeah try it I’ll video you lol I said I’m happy to video it and send it to you. Then he felt bad saying sorry I’m just having a bad night I’m sorry but that’s not a good enough excuse. Then kept apologising as we were walking out.

Will definitely not be back unless something drastically changes at this restaurant.

Do yourself a favour please and don’t...

Wow, I’m so disappointed. The waste of money is one thing but the food was really poor quality. I couldn’t figure out why a friend from the area told me he used to come here and said it’s good. I just called him for a shoulder to cry on and his wife screams out in the back “It’s changed hands”. Those fatal words… If only I knew.

Ok so I just wanted some classic cantonese. Beef in Black Bean, Fried Rice. The lady on phone order duties asks me if I want anything else? I take her challenge and order Szechuan Chicken.

The friendly staff member in the completely seperate take away section greets me, I pay for my order and convince myself I made a great choice. The place seems organised and orders are stacked up waiting for customers to collect. Fast cooking it seems…

Food arrives way faster than 15 - 20 mins and I commend myself on my punctuality. We’re like a well trained relay team at this point so I’m feeling lucky.

I’m home and look at the fried rice and the rest of the order, every piece of ingredient in the dishes is so big I’m wondering if the cooks even bothered to prep? Then I think ok… this is to fill the containers with less actual food.

The flavour in the black bean sauce is ok, not dripping with flavour but there is no taste of water but the actual veggies and beef are cut so large you can’t even fit them in your mouth? whats the purpose of cutting them? so it’s easy to eat!!! it’s how every chinese restaurant has done it for centuries.

The szechuan chicken is revolting and I’m in shock. The chicken just looks boiled and has made zero contact with a pan. I didn’t expect it to come on a sizzling plate but this was nothing like that. It was boiled and there wasn’t even a glimpse of szechuan pepper.

Now fried rice is usually pretty easy right? This had ham instead of roast pork and 2 shrimp. The flavour was so bland it might as well have just been steamed rice. The few peas wasn’t inspiring.

A few of these reviews had a sassy response from the owner. A big heads up to that douche if he reads this, telling people to relocate to another state when all they need to is drive a few minutes to Jufu Garden and get delicious food for less money seems fine as long as you’re footing the cost for their relocation.

That type of attitude will sink you faster than trying to be honest with yourself.

I would have been happy to return this food for a refund and I’m never that disappointed. It was really that bad.

If you can’t get the most basic dishes even close to eatable there’s no way you can serve anything else decent. Shocking...

The change in management has certainly made a difference.

I booked online and the took 10 minutes to find my name in the booking list. We were finally seated and only given one menu to share.

We ordered an entree and additional sauce that didn’t come out. It took a while to get the attention of wait staff before we could ask for the sauce which came 5 mins later, then another sauce arrived some time after that.

We finished our entree and after 20 mins a dish arrived at our table that we didn’t order, this was for the table next to us. After another 20 mins I received a main sized sizzling prawns even though I ordered an entree size. We waited a little while for our other dishes to arrive as the sizzle dies down on the prawns. As our other dishes still hadn’t arrived we finally flagged down a waiter who came back to say “I went to the kitchen but I couldn’t see where the order was”. Seriously! If you’ve not sure where the order is, then you ask the kitchen staff. You don’t tell your customers that. After another wait, we were then told our other dishes were “being cooked now”. In the meantime our single dish of prawns was getting cold. Our other dishes eventually arrived. I’ve never seen so many peas in a fried rice before! The quail tasted very salty. Quite disappointing when you’re paying so much for each dish.

We finished our meal and wanted to provide feedback regarding our disappointing experience. The young waiter was apologetic as we were paying and the manager was at the bar next to him who started to talk to us. Straight away she was very defensive and not listening to our concerns at all. She started yelling that they had staff away due to Covid and said she was happy to lose our business! I was absolutely shocked!

The issues over the night were not a result of Covid. I can understand time delays but that wasn’t our issue. The issue was poorly trained staff, orders not being taken correctly and dishes coming out at different times when some of it hadn’t even been cooked yet.

Some of these you could accept in any run of the mill place but there has always been a great level of service and high quality food experienced at Man Bo and it is very disappointing to know that due to poor management that has now gone. Being yelled at by the manager is unacceptable! I certainly will...