Nanima Asian Kitchen & Café — Restaurant in Great Britain

Having read a few other reviews in this profile, I must admit I’m a little worried that the owner will retaliate to this review. I rarely write harsh reviews and I’m surprised that there are so many 5 star reviews given here. Expensive is the first word that comes to mind. I don’t mind paying more for good quality food and drinks, but this place is unauthentic and I came away feeling short-changed. I’m actually still trying to work out how it came to cost so much. I should have asked for an itemised receipt, which was not issued as standard. On first impressions, this is a cosy little corner café selling a range of Asian cuisine. The décor is beautiful and we were comfortably seated. We were greeted, I presume, by the owner. I found the verbal menu explanations confusing and it would have been nice to have had a written menu that I could have referred to on the table to have given me time to process the information. We were informed that we could have anything we saw and I understood that if we wanted little bowls to share we could do that. Everything looked so delicious and my partner asked if we could have both meat choices to share with some other bits. However, it transpired that the only real way to do that was for us both to have a meal comprising of one meat, rice or noodles, and one veg. So we ended up sharing two bowls of food between us. Our vegan guest simply had a bowl of vegetables, there were no protein choices for vegetarians or vegans on this occasion. The food itself was rather disappointing. My chicken and rice were lukewarm and there was little of interest in the flavour. My partner’s noodles were bland but together with the chilli chicken were fairly tasty. The vegetable dishes were equally uninspiring. The pakoras looked lovely but having had authentic Indian freshly cooked crispy pakoras I’d say they tasted reheated or had been left too long and they were soft. (Try East Brighton Café). The meat itself tasted like poor-quality chicken that had been reheated, cooked off the bone and without the tasty skin. The drinks were too expensive! (Not sure how much for the fizzy water but it looked like an expensive bottle). Our 3 drinks in total came to over £10. At the end of our meal, it became clear that another party had been told they could have our table. We felt a little pushed out but I can’t say this was completely intentional.

In response to the owner's feedback - all I am going to say is read all the other negative reviews folks - they are all the same. In addition the owner goes into massive defensive mode every time someone criticises. When profits come before customer happiness something is very wrong. So many people here have criticised the same things and yet he is unwilling to see there might be a problem or change a thing. I feel sorry for the lovely ladies who prepare the food having to put up with him. There are loads of lovely places to eat in Brighton where the food is better and the prices meet my...

Will never ever understand the hype and almost cult status of this place. From the outside, the restaurant is pleasant the same can be said of the interior. I appreciate much care has gone into the image and ethos of Nanima.

Me and my partner one cold Saturday evening some time ago, were politely 'ushered' in, it seemed like a good bet to satisfy our meat and vegetarian dietary needs.

From this point onwards the process became somewhat complicated and unnecessarily so, as the owner talked us through the process of ordering, whilst also serving a small group of other customers.

We decided on a starter requesting a few bites, some onion bhaji's and a few other bits I recall, followed by two mains which were tasty enough- good even, but by no means exceptional. Something a bit of effort in the kitchen at home could well replicate!

Filled and satisfied I then went to pay the bill, which I was nothing short of mortified to have discovered as nearing the 40 mark, how could this be? We had a bowl each, a snack selection for a starter and had been drinking tap water (tap water served in ludicrously small glasses, to encourage the Buying of a bottle perhaps?)

I stood there shocked and when challenging the owner as to how this price equated to our meals, not much of a response came my way, other than service charge and starter....Perhaps it were the Starter that raised the price so drastically, an off the menu request with an unreasonable high mark up decided there and then?

Of course I wished to have challenged the bill further at the time but as any reasonable person will know in such situations, whether through disbelief or courtesy, you often bit your tongue and proceed.

I appreciate it is hard out there and independent businesses must do all they can to survive, but ripping off not well of customers such as myself is not a good look and consequently results in bad reviews such...

Story time: I discovered this restaurant as I was walking past it to go to a bakery for a particular pastry I wanted to try as a birthday treat to myself. The bakery didn't have what I wanted, so I decided to walk down to the pier & enjoy the sound of the waves. Then I started to get hungry & remembered I had walked past Nanima. I circled back to the restaurant & was met by a friendly man who explained how there's no set menu & the dishes change daily. That particular day, I decided to go for some coconut rice, chickpea curry, a paneer spinach pastry & a chai latte. With some friendly small talk, the man discovered it was my birthday & proceeded to celebrate me by singing happy birthday & clanging some cymbals haha! Then he kindly gave me the chai latte on the house. How lovely! I got the order to go & didn't bother to get the food heated as I planned to continue walking around a bit before heading to my accommodation. From the time I bought the food to actually eating it was probably around 3-4 hours. I heated everything up in the microwave and OMG! My whole room smelt DIVINE from the food. The beautiful scent wasn't just a fluke because everything tasted equally as divine! How does 4 hours out of fridge food heated in the dodgy glamping pod microwave taste so good?! I happily consumed the bundle of joy on my plate whilst watching a Christmas movie & declared the day a wonderful birthday! - End of story time - If you successfully got to the end of this review, just stop what you're doing & head to Nanima for a delightful meal, hurry, RUN, why make your tastebuds live another second without the taste of Nanima on it?!...