Review Nila Restaurant - Coburg

Vegetarian Thali - the 'Biriyani' was plain rice with a small amount of carrot grated into it. This place gets one star because the food was ready on time, and one star because my goat order looked to be actually goat. Otherwise this place sells watery muck and I hope they close down soon. Another crap Coburg restaurant.

Nila was a straight forward restaurant with very reasonable food. Good Malay range and it is halal. Look forward to coming back.

My wife and I love this place - the prawn masala and roti masala are to die for. We order from Nila at least once a week.

Wait for while. Not happy with "uluthu wade" and the " idely". But "kotthu rotti" is good. Will not go again. Will find a another place.

Warning Avoid this SCAM business!. FOUL DISGUSTING EXCUSE OF an INDIAN RESTAURANT!

nice very good food

when its opening again?????????????????????

Nope. Went there in excitement when I moved to Coburg because I missed home and wanted a dosai. Nope. Feels like a grimy restaurant in India, minus the delicious authentic food.

Dont even botherr. Ordered a takeway food wasnt the best one container of chicken 65 had very few chicken peices container was half full and goatcurry was the same all soup goat nowhere ,

Friendly staff , great food and service !<br/><br/>Will be going again ! great dosas!

Well, it's a stretch to call Nila a restaurant. There's nothing WRONG with it, but "restaurant" is stretching definitions, I think. As one of the people I was there with said: "It reminds me of dining in Asia." It's not a café, it's not a bistro, so I'm not sure what to call it, so maybe "restaurant" will have to do. It's a little shopfront with a bain-marie at the front, a kitchen at the back and a few tables and chairs between. We were there on a Groupon voucher which promised "2 entrees, 2 mains, 2 desserts from the set dinner menu", which actually meant you got to choose the above from a tiny subset of the menu, and even some of the nominated selections weren't available. The food was OK, but nothing more, and the Nasi Goreng which was provided to the vegetarian in our group did look more like Chow Mein than any Nasi Goreng I'd ever seen. The service was enthusiastic, if erratic, and the "desserts" were unbelievably tiny, and very non-descript.

Worst restaurant experience of my life! Food is inedible, while chewing there were literally hard bits that you can't bite into that appeared like wood or bark:s As soon as the food is served you can tell it's not even proper Indian food just seems like a bunch of veggies put together and cooked up by just anyone. Don't waste your time or money I promise you it's not worth it.

Don't do it. Tonight I ordered garlic roti, mushroom curry, rice, pakora and soup. My first warning sign should have been that the containers weren't even half full. It was the worst thing I've ever tried to eat. One bite of each proved all the dishes were inedible. I will definitely be complaining to the restaurant. <br/><br/>I honestly think these were reheated leftovers.

Stay away from Nila. With so many new Indian restaurants in Melbourne it's amazing that Nila dishes up this shocking food. The food is typical of the kinda crap we used to get 20 years ago. Our meal here was absolutely revolting. We barely touched the butter chicken, which tasted off as I feared for our health. The lamb murthabac was full of raw onion and very unappealing. Am hoping that we do not get terribly sick from the food.

Food sits in a Bain Marie all day and the dishes and shop is greasy!!! Health inspection required!!!

I ordered my dinner before reading the reviews<br/>It was midnight and had not had dinner. Found this place was open so ordered my dinner via urban spoon. <br/>I was reading the reviews while waiting.<br/>I don't know why all the bad reviews<br/>I admit it is not the best curry but I have had worse and the portions could be bigger but overall I like the good<br/>Onion baggi was a bag of onion bhaji<br/>Bryiani was a little tasteless<br/>Egg plant curry was nice and not to spicy<br/>The chicken tandoori was nice but when there was 6 pieces I thought that would be bigger pieces.

This restaurant could definitely use some help from an interior designer but it has by FAR the best chicken curry in Melbourne. There are definitely some reviews on here that criticise this main or that dish but lets put it this way...you dont go to McDonalds to order the fish burger. So what do you order? The round parotas with chicken currys. Be a bit adventerous if you must but centre your dinner around this main and you cant go wrong <br/>This place reminds me a bit of 'I love pho' (when it was still pho che the) before the urbanspoon hype....rustic, raw and only trading on the strength of their food.<br/><br/>Cheers

Avoid if you know what's good for you.... Oh dear. This place takes the prize for the worst Indian food I have ever had in my entire life :-(<br/>It was so bad I had to telephone them to talk to someone about how terrible it was & that they should possibly consider talking to/training up properly/firing outright their chef.<br/>Tepid, bland, watery dahl. Chicken tikka was metallic tasting with chunks of semi cooked green capsicum & a strange onion mush, quite indescribable in flavour & texture. Beef masala was an odd stewed meat come stir fry combination with more chunks of uncooked capsicum. My plain lassi was bright pink & sweet enough to make my teeth want to evacuate my mouth. Everything was just inedible.<br/>It was so bad, I wasn’t sure if I should give them praise for managing to get it just so wrong, or to actually feel sorry for them. There’s a part of me that feels that it takes a special sort of talent to put so much effort into making everything come out just that spectacularly terribly.

Absolutely vile! Terrible watered down mains that were overpriced and very small in size. Worst Indian joint I have encountered in a while.

Myself and 5 of my family members went here today. First of all, the portions were tiny, compared to the price you pay for the dishes. When we were ordering, we asked the waiter how big the portions were, and he said they were quite large. We all together had chicken Briyani, lamb Briyani, chicken vindaloo, dhal makhani and roti. Both briyanis were only a small bowl full each, very little flavour and only 2 pieces of meat, which is ridiculous, whilst the two curries were just unnecessarily hot with no actual flavour and also only a small bowl size. Secondly, the place could do with a good clean up, only after I was seated, I saw there were stains on the table, and on the serviettes that were meant to be fresh, clean ones. The walls were greasy, because you could see they haven't been cleaned up for a while. Thirdly, the service was ok, but it could have been much better. Half of the time, the staff in the kitchen would yell at each other at the top of their lungs in some indian language and run out into the dining area out of frustration, which gave the few diners, including myself an uncomfortable vibe. Fourthly, our food took half an hour to come, and other then myself and my other family members who was with me, there were only 2 other customers who already had their food. <br/>I don't know why 53% of people like this place! They of course don't value their money. <br/>So, if you value your time and money, please take my honest opinion to heart.

Where's the "Meh" button. Went there last night using a Living Social voucher for Indian degustation and mango lassi. Service was OK since there were only two other diners in the place. Food portions were a reasonable size. Dishes were watery with one being to hot to eat. I like hot but this was just hot without flavour. My wife commented that we've eaten worse Indian on occasion. <br/><br/>The toilet could use a good cleaning I heard. The restaurant could also use a good cleaning to remove the food and grease from the walls. <br/><br/>I would definitely not return. The ~50% rating the restaurant about says it for me too. I certainly won't say "I like it" or "Doesn't like like". Urbanspoon needs a "Meh" voting option for places like this.

Gross out grimy. We ate on a $19 Living Social voucher for 2 - Thali degsutation plates, dessert and mango lassi each. Ordered one veg and one meat Thali. Neither had the rasam (sour soup), 2 of the veg dishes were inedible and those that were had almost no veg apart from the bean dish, one meat dish was so hot it was not edible, other 3 were not bad but mostly sauce, maybe 2 small pieces of meat per dish. Raita was terrible - watery and a a weird radish flavour. Some awful off tasting watery condensed milk was served alongside each meal? My 10yo asked where are the vegies :-) savory pancake - one was huge and soggy, the other tiny but nice and crispy. Drinks were small for the price, and desserts were not great but then most Indian desserts I have had were nothing to write home about. Rice serves were nice and generous but the veg rice had huge chunks of spices. Overall ok and very filling with all that rice.<br/>HOWEVER, the place was very very grotty, sticky tables and chairs, walls with food spatter near our table, dirty smudges on windows and bain marie glass. Thankfully our dishes looked clean enough, but I was very worried we might get food poisoning or gastro. Luckily we didn't. <br/>Service was ok, friendly enough but waitress spent most of the time watching TV and only cleared away food plates when I asked her, as she was serving dessert and had left the dirty food plates in front of us. Only us and a couple were there, so not busy.<br/>Would not be in a hurry to go back.

Like stepping into india. you need to know what to order. dosas and roti all good. husband (raised in india) always has goat masala. idli..not great. we are in and out for a reasonably good, cheap lunch

Avoid. This place gets one star because the food was ready on time, and one star because my goat order looked to be actually goat. The vegetarian Thali - the 'Biriyani' was plain rice with a small amount of carrot grated into it. This place sells watery muck and I hope they close down soon. Another crap Coburg restaurant :-(

Nila no good. I have only attempted take-away from Nila and that only once. I wanted something quick so asked the only server in the restaurant what was in the bain-marie. He didn't know. He freely admitted that then had a stab anyway "that's goat curry... maybe... that's vindaloo?" He had to go out the back and, after several minutes, get someone else to come and tell me (his guesses were all wrong). I don't know that knowing the dishes made much difference anyway as it was all pretty boring and a high ratio of water gravy and gristle to good stuff. I haven't bothered giving them a second chance and won't.

Was average. Food ok nothing special. Staff friendly. Decor needs to be redone badly a bit off-putting.

Careful consideration is required in ordering from Nila. They do a crispy Masala Dosa with yummy accompaniments ie dhall, coconut & chilli..delicious lamb vindaloo. Avoid the oily breyani.

Best roti. You have to know what to order at this restaurant. basically all of the rotis are great including murtubak and kottu roti. the dosai masala and veg thali is good too. this food is very authentic nasi kandar i.e. malaysian indian- it is not fancy just ultra-cheap, greasy, salty and roti. the sardine murtubak is worth going for alone.

Cheap. Found the servings to be very small, curries were average, nothing out of the ordinary. Very friendly service, ensuring everything was OK.

CRAP food watery curries.. Yuk environment...even watery yoghurt...don't go there

If you know what to order from this place ,you wont be disappointed . The roti is very good ,vindaloo is good also,the masala dosai is very good.Not the best in town but a good cheap local.

Complete rip-off, absolute disappointment!!. Used a groupon voucher however the food offered was totally different to description of the deal. only given 2 choices of either rice or biryani for the main and nothing else. The waiter said curries are not included. This was in absolute contrast to 'Options include sizzling seafood, aromatic curry, healthy tandoori grill and more'. Also no selection of entree or dessert was allowed. We received: on the same plate a serve of rice with hardly any meat in it, 1 vegetarian samosa and a runny liquid they claimed was dessert. A complete rip-off!! food tasted awful and service was painfully slow. Even at the discounted price we could have bought a more decent meal somewhere else!

Don't waste your time and money!. Went there with a voucher (Groupon), restaurant was heavily under-staffed with one server on the floor taking orders, serving and making roti at the front shop. Was given menu and said we were only allowed to choose from the biryani section for mains, and only 2 desserts were available (so we had no choice but to choose the two); even though this was not stated on the voucher (which boasts of flavourful curries/tandoori etc). <br/><br/>Had the pakora for entree, nothing to shout home about and was a bit oily. Main took almost another 45 minutes to be served- and we had a rude surprise of having a dirty serviette served beside the biryani rice! When questioned the server insisted it was "clean" as he used it to wipe the curry off the side of the thali plate. Did not make a big fuss as we couldn't be bothered waiting another 45 mins for a replacement. Another shocker is that the dessert was served in a small bowl together with the main (beside the curry) which was not communicated to us when we were served the mains! Atrocious service, and when we left we saw black finger marks on the dough of the roti on the hotplate- suspect it the server haven't had time to clean his hands serving, collecting money and making roti all at the same time. Definitely left a bad aftertaste in our mouths- never again!<br/><br/>Note: Groupon was not helpful in this occasion- when contacted through e-mail they would not offer a refund even though the restaurant posed restrictions on the meals which was disappointing.

Don't do it to yourselves!. Worst dining experience i have ever had.<br/>hilarious....but an absolute train wreck.<br/><br/>waited 45mins to even have our orders taken, watched others who came in after us receive their meals half an hour before us, our entrees were cold, mains were not what we ordered and desserts never came. when we finally got their attention, they said they didn't have anything from the dessert menu to offer despite not telling us that at the beginning when we ordered our desserts. instead explaining that we'd been given an alternative.. a strange icy sauce that was on the side of our main plates next to all the other sauces. we put it on our rice thinking it was meant to be eaten with it.<br/><br/>the whole experience was so odd and i can't help but wish i had those three hours of my life back.

Cheap but not pretty. Went to Nila last night with a Groupon voucher. Inside the restaurant was basic (but what I expected for the cheap prices) but the toilet was terrible - outside along a corridor where there was no light and the door didn't close. Entree came quickly - only one samosa (very tasty though) and veg pakora rather than the paneer pakora I'd ordered. Accomp sauces were bland. Main didn't come from the kitchen but from a display at the front - the waiter appeared to make it himself by combining ladels from the various pots! Taste wise my veg korma was disappointing & had a strange flavour that I felt might make me ill. Vindaloo flavour was good but not much meat content. Rice quantity was huge (although had to pay for this as apparently wasn't inc in the 3-course meal deal). garlic roti was lovely. Galub jamun desert was tasty but only received 1 portion so felt a bit let down. Overall i wouldn't go again as I would prefer to pay more for better quality..

Definitely recommend the veg curries- especially the okra. Yum. And the delicious and authentic roti

Bad Experience!. Don't bother wasting your time and your money. I waited over an hour for my entree to come out. When the entree came out it looked atrocious, it was simply frozen Indian samosa and spring rolls that you can get from Coles.<br/><br/>I went with an Indian friend, and she said the service was snobby, the tables were sticky, the toilet door didn't close, and the food was bad quality.<br/><br/>Don't be fooled by Matt Preston's review of the restaurant - it was SIX YEARS ago!

Tasty food, quietly tucked away, authentic flavours and spices, will visit again

Mostly gravy. I want to like Nila more than I do. They have the potential to be very good, but so far I've been mostly disappointed.<br/><br/>The prices are cheap, but on getting home and opening my takeaway containers, I invariably find they're filled with mostly gravy and comparatively little meat or vegetables. Sure, it's very tasty gravy, but I'd prefer more solids, even if it means raising the prices. I've never dined in, so I don't know if it's only the takeaway meals that have this problem.<br/><br/>The filled roti is much better value for money.

The best Roti in the world!!!!

Tasty and great value. A really good variety of dishes and excellent value. Highly recommend the red pumpkin curry, and the old favourite butter chicken's pretty good too.<br/><br/>I'd give the fish curry a miss, however: bony, dry, unpleasant old-fishy taste.<br/><br/>Over all, a good south+southeast asian takeaway.