Mumbaiwala — Restaurant in Waitematā

As there is no option to give zero stars I am forced to give them one!

Our party were dining at Mumbaiwala on first table. We arrived outside the restaurant at 4:55pm to ensure we were on time for our 5pm booking. While we waited out in the cold, it was very clear to the woman that worked front of house (FOH) that we were waiting for the restaurant to open. Another couple also dining on first table waited alongside us. Given 6 people are now stood outside looking into the restaurant, the FOH woman still continued to set tables and fluff about. The doors finally opened at 5:03pm, and the FOH woman didn’t even acknowledge us waiting outside in the cold. She just came over and slid the rusty door without making eye contact with anyone.

We ordered the prawn kolowada, murgh tikka and pav bhaji to start. These dishes were fine, with the latter being quite nice actually. We sat with our finished entree plates and empty drink glasses for about 18 minutes. The FOH woman came by and randomly removed one empty entree dish from the table, leaving behind everything else.

The mains were an absolute disappointment. Everything is just bland! The other reviews regarding this are sadly true! The flesh of the chicken for the murgh karahi was still white. An indication that the protein had just been added to the sauce rather than being cooked within it. The goan fish and prawn curry was even worse. It tasted as if it was watered down. The fish was gross. If you are familiar with South Asian and South East Asian cuisine you will know that basa is frequently used in cooking due to its affordability. Theres a strong smell to basa, and it doesn’t flake like normal fish having a rather spongy texture to it instead. We felt immediately that basa was used here. I think it’s just poor for a restaurant of all places, that has access to wholesale suppliers to resort to using the cheapest fish anyone can pick up at a supermarket. If it was not basa, then whatever was used was not fresh and the “chef” cooked the hell out of those fillets. The murgh makani and sali bolti were alright. Maybe they were pre-made/pre bought curry mixes because they were more palatable than the other curries. The people cooking these dishes need to learn how to balance the spices being used. We were desperate for some salt to sprinkle onto our plates or a bit of lime juice to be squeeze over the curries! Anything to just make the taste pop on our palette rather than landing flat.

When waitress arrived at the table to ask if we wanted anything else, my mum was just picking out a long strand of black hair from the murgh karahi. It was entangled around some capsicum and embedded well into the curry. The waitress simply said “oh”, as my mum put the hair inside the empty naan basket. The waitress quickly said she would take the basket away, but there was no apology or acknowledgement of what just happened. The owner has replied to a lot of reviews on here accusing patrons of not speaking up at the time if there were issues. But if us picking out a strand of hair from a curry in front of the waitress doesn’t evoke a reaction, why would we bother pulling aside anyone else to complain?!

Given there was no follow up to the hair in the curry, we swiftly proceeded to finish up and pay. We left a lot of the murgh karahi and goan fish and prawn curry behind, these curries were simply inedible. When we went to pay the FOH lady didn’t even ask us how our meals were.

The only silver lining here was that we were first table diners so the food was discounted. I would have been irate to pay a bill of $300+ for very average tasting food. It was only upon exit that we realised the FOH lady was the owner, which makes her behaviour even more appalling.

The food is lack lustre and staff/service/atmosphere contribute little towards a good dining experience.

Take the hint and change absolutely everything about...

By far the WORST Indian restaurant in the whole country. You can find MUCH better Indian food at your nearest malls food court. We probably had ordered 3 quarters of the menu & everything was wayyyyy below average. Do yourselves a favour and stay away from the masala chai. Not sure how you can mess a masala chai up??? I was able to make much better masala chai at the age of 5, so it’s not rocket science. Please also avoid the bland & uncooked malai broccoli. Actually avoid the entire menu and go elsewhere. The food took soooooo long to reach our table, you’d think a lot of love was being poured into the dishes, but it seems that the chef or chefs just hate their profession to let such terrible meals out of the kitchen. The waitress asked how everything was & we told her and she giggled and said hehe yeah some of the things are a bit weird. The person taking our money also asked how everything was & we told him & he argued & gave us an explanation on how the broccoli was cooked. As a group who is very knowledgeable on Indian food, we know how dishes are made & how they are supposed to taste, so don’t tell us the broccoli was cooked in the tandoor when it came to us RAW! Whilst I don’t recommend this place for food, if you are passionate about public bathrooms, you may want to check their toilet out. The toilet plays train sounds as you do your business. But that is truly the only good thing I can mention about mumbaiwala. Although I’m not even sure if anyone is actually from Mumbai or has any connections to Mumbai after dining here, sadly!

Reply to Mumbaiwala: your response is actually laughable. Quite frankly, I don’t care to give any further information to you. This is a review of my experience & if you turn a blind eye to it, well I guess your restaurant will never be able to make any improvements. There was a whole malai broccoli sent back from our table to the kitchen to be disposed of, after we’d expressed our disappointment. I believe that’s not easy to miss. You find it hard to believe that the manager argued with us, because you’re here yourself publicly arguing with anyone and everyone who gives their feedback via review. You also pretend feedback is serious but you don’t actually respond to any emails, judging from others reviews. Whether you choose to address it or not, anyone in customer service, whether they believe the customer or not, would say something along the lines of “We’re sorry that your experience dining with us was not up to the standard we strive to deliver. Your feedback is greatly appreciated, as it helps us identify areas which we are able to make improvements. Thank you for taking the time out to do so.” ….BUT YOU on the other hand are just publicly insulting your customers with your replies. You can be in hospitality for 30 years, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. It shows you haven’t learnt much from the way you address any sort of feedback provided to you. But hey on the bright side, it’s great that you have so much trust in your staff that you believe they wouldn’t argue. However you might want to update your little book system, as it seems that writing notes in there isn’t working as well as you’d hoped.

Also your parle g biscuits...

Hi all , we went to mumbai wala on long weekend to dine and enjoy with our friends but was absolutely disgusted with experience in terms of the attitude and service of the staff.we were waiting at reception to be greeted and allocated the table. After 5 min of wait , the manager came , had no smile on face, directed us to the table in corner and said “this is the only table I have got left”, as if she is doing some kind of favour by letting us dine there. The choice of words and the poker face on her face showed no enthusiasm towards diners. Such an unfriendly welcome.

To top up the bad experience , I highly recommend to NOT VISIT this restaurant if you have an infant or a baby who is on nappy. We had 7 month old baby with us and we were told that we could not change his nappy in the restaurant. IT IS NOT ALLOWED. I asked if they have nappy changing facility ( which my husband had already checked in washroom ) but we still asked if they have and were told NO. I was totally disgusted by this attitude of their manager. If you do not want the nappy to be changed in restaurant, please do arrange a nappy changing facility in your washroom , which by the way you don’t have any facility. It was freezing cold outside and we were asked to go out the restaurant to change my baby’s nappy. We had to leave the table in middle of our food to walk towards our car , change nappy and come back to finish our food. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING ATTITUDE.

We have visited so many restaurants in past 7 months with our newborn baby and had always had welcoming attitude towards feeding or nappy changing from all other restaurants except MUMBAIWALA.

The staff had no smile on their face and were eager to just clean the plates .

The food was so blend , no taste . If Actually the chef would have ever visited mumbai and had true taste of mumbai’s food, this restaurant wouldn’t have existed. Please don’t spoil the name of MUMBAI and its food by serving your blend food.

The space is so cramped that even the waiters had to squeeze between tables to move around. They are making $$ on every sq.ft space .

Last but not the least, the manager did not even do eye contact while taking the payment , no smile at all or an effort to make small basic conversation or greeting a goodbye.

You guys are a part of hospitality industry but have no essence of it as the major thing missing from the whole experience was empathy towards diners and hospitality.

You should get retrained and retrain all your staff to learn some empthy and kindness.

Highly recommended to NOT VISIT OF YOU...