Two different days, two very different stories when it comes to Indian food. See my next review on Madras Banyan Tree. I went to Flora Indian Restaurant a couple of nights ago. It’s kind of like “the fast food of Indian restaurants”, or almost. The prices are cheap, but I found the food to be pretty disappointing.

Flora Indian Restaurant & Cafe
238 Flinders Street
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Ph: (03) 9663 1212

The ambience and location
Situated right opposite Flinders Street Station, you could not pick out a better spot.  The restaurant is well located, and is neatly managed inside. The plasma with Indian songs running in the background is a cheeky idea too. It makes business sense to have a restaurant near a University (Victoria University), a busy metro station (Flinders Street), and a number of tourist attractions (Federation square, and more).

The food
Flora has existed for a number of years now, and over the years the quality of food has worsened unfortunately. It was the one of the first well known Indian places to have good quality South Indian food. I ordered one of the Combo meals. The mushroom curry, and potato curry were half cooked, and the dhal curry was deplorable. I have eaten in  many Indian restaurants, and I can see why you can easily be fooled into thinking this is standard Indian cuisine. However, their target is students and the fast eaters - so it makes sense to serve food fast, cheap and perhaps not care about quality so much.

The service
Nothing much I can talk about here. The only service I used, and got was when I paid for my meal.

The Rating - 5/10 (great location, excellent for the quick bite, but thats about it)
I was a bit disappointed with Flora because of its history. I have dined there in the past, when it was a quality restaurant. It’s kind of been taken over by the need for speed factor.