Khalid's Kitchen — Restaurant in Hastings

Do not bother with this restaurant. I booked our table via Facebook messenger which is a service offered by Khalids Kitchen via Facebook. The table was confirmed by them and a reminder sent on the day of the booking. When we arrived this evening we were told there was no booking for us and that we would have to sit downstairs. It was cold downstairs as the delivery drivers were continually in and out of the door. The waitress put the heating on for us but it didn’t take the chill off. One of our party went upstairs to find several tables not reserved so we had been lied to. We were given menus which were covered in food and dog-eared. Our starters, (3 x hummus), took 25 minutes to arrive. One of our party asked for gluten free bread, hers arrived warmed, the other 2 portions of bread were stone cold so we had to ask for it to be warmed. Our main meals arrived before our starters had been cleared away. One of the dishes was lamb skewers with onion, pepper and cherry tomatoes with rice and tahini sauce. The skewer arrived without the pepper and cherry tomatoes, when we queried this we were told they didn’t have any left. This hadn’t been explained to us when the food was brought to the table. We were offered bigger tomatoes which we agreed to. We were brought a little bowl of 2 CHERRY TOMATOES, after being told there weren’t any. Then a bowl of peppers arrived, again after we’d been told there weren’t any. So far we’d been lied to about the table and the tomatoes and peppers. The lamb was so overcooked it was bone dry, there was no pinkness in the middle and it was black on the outside. The rice on all 3 of our dishes was clumpy, my dish had massive clumps of rice stuck together. Very unappetising and not how rice should be presented in a restaurant. We asked to speak to the owner as we were so unhappy with our evening. He said all he could do was apologise, he argued with us about the peppers and tomatoes and said he’d ’found the tomatoes in the corner of the fridge’ which was reassuring. We asked for a discount as we were not willing to pay for inedible food. He offered 25% which we declined. We asked for 50% which we believed would cover the hummus and our drinks. As we continued to explain how unhappy we were he walked away from us mid sentence. Extremely rude behaviour from a business owner who relies on the good faith of customers to keep his business going. We offered to pay for the food we had eaten and our drinks as they still expected us to pay for the inedible food even after the discount. After speaking to the owner again, the waiter said we didn’t have to pay. That wasn’t even the point, the awful food and the rudeness of the owner was the point. We will never visit Khalids Kitchen again and urge others...

I absolutely love this place!!!

Whether it’s a cup of coffee and a sweet treat, lunch or dinner - Khalid’s Kitchen is the place to go! Khalid and his team are attentive, friendly and helpful…nothing is too much trouble, and they are especially considerate of my food allergy.

The food is delicious - it's authentic and made by the talented kitchen staff. There is plenty of choice, and something for every occasion. I can recommend the shakshuka wrap for breakfast or the chicken shawarma for lunch and dinner. The food is always served fresh and wonderfully presented.

The restaurant is beautifully decorated in an Arabic style with exceptional attention to detail. It is clean, comfy, and spacious - a perfect place to enjoy with friends and family. There's also outside seating which makes for a perfect pitstop on our dog walks.

I’ve been a regular customer for two years so I’ve included some photos which speak for themselves - simply wonderful food and drinks! Come and see for yourselves, I would 100%...

To any Arabs thinking of trying this place, don’t. The food is not catered to us at all. It lacks all the correct flavours and is a poor representation of Levantine/Arab cuisine. It’s like if Jamie Oliver tried to open a Lebanese restaurant.

Before I go on I just want to say the staff are lovely and the service was very good, and the decor is nice.

The warak enab was definitely taken out of a can. The batata harra was not cooked the correct way at all and they just added a lot of paprika and nothing else. It was extremely dry. The most disappointing item was the kabsa. It did not represent kabsa at all. The rice was served soaking wet, with chicken marinaded with incorrect seasonings on top. Served with tzatziki which has nothing to do with kabsa.

I ordered chicken wings as a side thinking it would be grilled (like jawaneh) but they gave fried chicken wings with buffalo sauce on top.

Again can’t fault the lovely staff, just a shame the food was so...