Hasturk — Restaurant in Braintree

I love Turkish food and have been to two other Turkish restaurants which have been great experiences. I had heard good things about Hasturk so was excited to go. Unfortunately, the experience fell very short of what I was used to. Four of us had a meal on Sunday evening (18:30) and ordered starters. The starters came extremely quickly which made me think that the had been pre-prepared and sitting under a heat lamp for a while; they looked like they matched this description. My partner's Cypriot cheese starter was very good indeed but sadly the stuffed vine leaves I ordered were not that great. They tasted as if they had been stored in a jar of brine or vinegar for quite a while and I was feeling quite sick towards the end of the plate. My partner tried some and also agreed that they were particularly "unique" in taste; I used other words to describe them. Oh well can't always get it right, right?

My partner ordered the moussaka which did look excellent and she enjoyed it. The remainder of the party, including me, all ordered the mixed grill which consisted of a grilled lean chicken kebab and a grilled lean lamb kebab served with couscous. The couscous was good and the salad was excellent but it was the portion of the meat that took us all by surprise as we all immediately looked at each other and wondered where the rest of it was? This is probably why I can comment on the salad being so good as I ate all of it probably due to this. There was 4 very small cubes of meat on the lamb kebab and the same for the chicken with the exception of mine; the chicken kebab seemed to have three and a half cubes of meat with the last cube looking like it had been torn off and left somewhere, or possibly eaten by a hungry kitchen hand who suffered our same fate when having their meal break. Who knows? If the meal price was cheaper then maybe I could understand but it did not seem worth the £16 per dish and it did not leave me with that same positive feeling that other Turkish restaurants have left me.

Would I go back? Probably not. However if you have been here and really like it, try another Turkish restaurant on your travels as I think most will blow your mind with how...

This was our first return visit to a previous pleasant meal experience taking 2 members of our family. I have to share tonight’s experience as it is the reverse from our previous with a lack lustre couldn’t care less approach. The table wasn’t cleared from our starter plates and chattels where the mains were just dumped on us. Plenty of staff wondering, some aimlessly in their own world. On tracking down a waitress, and querying portion sizes on our regular choice of mains we asked to speak to the manager who was not convincing in his defence of the situation. The mixed kebab at £15.90 was not even half of a single chicken breast cut into 4. This will give you an idea of why we queried what was presented. The lamb pieces were the size of 4 Oxo cubes. However the manager argued this was a normal portion and we knew from previous visits not to be true. We were not in search of giant portions but felt what was presented DID NOT represent value for money. We were merely trying to raise our dissatisfaction and were not looking for anything in return just some compassion, however this was not afforded. Following this episode our evening ended by being overcharged by £ 20.00 on our bill, that was refunded but was the final straw we paid a £130.00 for a meal we could have had as a £50.00 takeaway with plenty left over for the following day!

Not an experience we will be returning too and I advise anybody going to think twice as customer care and satisfaction is...

We dined two people at the restaurant and I tried Adana, which personally the meat was good, but the salad aside resulting kofte soaked in the salad juice, and I had to endure the meat with red juice. That is not how Adana is served. I must admit the young waitresses were very nice and attentive, but we felt that they were rushing us to leave although the premises was more than half empty and plenty of tables available to any new customer should they had. The waitresses attended to remove the main course twice even though we were still having it. After the main course, we ordered Kadayif with ice cream, which I have noted one of the worst I have ever had. Kadayif was horribly outdated, and tasteless been sitting in the fridge for ages that I couldn’t eat. I grew up in Turkey, so I can taste a good Kadayif and is my favourite desert. I mentioned that to the waitress but no one from the management seemed to care to know why and come to ask us anything. Within 2 mins of the desert being removed, we were presented with the bill while we were still having our drinks, the time was 20:52. This was immediately followed by another waitress coming with the card machine and ask for payment. We were unable to understand that why a restaurant half empty and not yet late enough, still want to kick their customer out and don’t let them enjoy the Saturday night-out. Really...