You Screwed-up my entire evening !!
We were excited & starving. Along with another family, wanted to give it a go at some new dining place and so ended up here (booking in advance though) instead of our regular and all time delightful experience at...Baahubalii ( few meters away) . The fact is Bahubali also doesn't pay me for writing this piece.
It is my authentic outburst. The way you self-proclaim about your non-authuntic food.
It was yesterday, Saturday evening (1st June) not even any of the weekdays I am talking about. Weekends basically you are supposed to get more service staffs, isn't it !!
First, about your "Refined Dining" - Which you have been vouching with all pride in your home page picture !!
Yes, you have beautifully designed the restaurant into 2 halves. Needless to say, the foyer is exclusively meant for foreign customers, whereas any bookings of Indians would be pushed to the farthest and innermost corner of your second retreat. So that the people outside get amused with the glitter inside and the fast service being rendered in every table. Great way to deceive people !! No hard feelings for Aussies ( I have got many Aussie friends who savour & devour Indian food... So Respect for all !! . I live in their land any-day.
To tell you ,we waited for more than 45-50 mins for our entrée , but to be served with chewy rather half cooked Tandoori Chicken Full, without any element of tandoori or that roasted look. We didn't complain but negotiated with Achari Paneer Tikka which was tender and nice, but served after another 15 mins. Atleast the kids had something to eat even though little spicy. We were afraid to place order for anything else for kids, imagining it will take another couple of hours to come to table.
Then comes the main course and the actual drama !! We ordered one Veg Biryani , Chicken Biryani , Shahi Paneer and 2 Naans . The order was taken immediately after our entree plates were cleared off but was served after an hour again.The very look of the biryani was so disappointing that I even skipped to click a picture of it. So called the waitress, she in-turn called her boss to address my issue. Instead of being apologetic, the service manager (lady with her formal attire) comes with an yet a stubborn answer " We don't serve Authentic Biryani ".. Seriously !!! should I say anything more ?? I was like, Should I laugh out loud and let other customers know that your restaurant staff is acknowledging of fake biryani being served in the restaurant. Though she mentioned about replacing the food with something else. We preferred to reorder the Shahi Paneer and naan which was scrumptious for kids. But she never discounted the price for the biryani which wet never ate .
In fact she was 101% correct , the chicken biryani & the veg Biryani which I ordered was no where close to biryani. Well, in a biryani , the temptation comes from the aromatic rice and succulent chicken drumsticks . Where as in this case, the quality of the rice was pathetically sad with such hard and chewy bits of chicken again in them. It would be more sickening to mention about the Veg red Chilli-Pwered fried rice with no, meaning no vegetables at all in them ( yes , I am not even mentioning Paneer or cauliflower ) but with few sprinkle of spring onion to compliment. And that was supposedly your so called Veg-biryani !!
The take-away joints offer much better biryani sans the ambience in just 10 dollars.
Either you hire a proper chef ( who has a little knowledge of cooking chicken or Biryani) or a decent manager to deal with disappointing food leading to heartened customers.
But one thing for sure , u guys have crafted the skills of serenading and catering to the Aussie customers in the finest possible way. But the truth is I pay the same money ; kids as-well as us were equally starving and PASSIONATE ( Junoon) to have the food of this acclaimed restaurant . In that case you should have named it as Junoon for Aussies only !!
It was such a surreal experience that I couldn't help but share.
Neither you justify the name " Junoon" nor the concept !!
"The magic happens when the exquisite food comes together with excellent service in a heavenly ambience. Junoon Melbourne aims to provide you with that AUTHENTIC experience which takes you to the heart of India. "
It was neither the exquisite food nor the authentic experience !!
Well, in this entire fiasco I would never forget to appreciate the commendable job of that one single girl, wearing specs ( a college student might be), who took our orders and got the food to our table in her best etiquette . Probably the lone girl running the entire show for the restaurant that evening. She has been nice through out running from post to pillar.
Thankyou for this extraordinary experience !!More
