Udaya Kerala Restaurant — Restaurant in London

I do not recommend the Onam Sadya here mainly because of the service. I booked two days in advance and could only get a late slot at 7:45 pm. I was relieved to get a slot at all, since I booked so late. But on the morning of the event, I was informed that our slot had been moved to 8:40 pm because of overbooking. No option for a refund was offered — just a notification of the change. When I asked, I was reassured that there would be no compromise in the quality of food or service. Since I was eager to take my non-Malayali friends for Sadya, I agreed and was quite excited regardless. Unfortunately, this is how the evening unfolded:

Delay – We were only let into the restaurant at 9:15 pm, 35 minutes later than promised.

Food – The pineapple pachhadi and moru were good. Having eaten many Sadyas before, I’d say the rest of the food was just average. That said, my friends, who were trying Sadya for the first time, were delighted by the experience, the food, and the banana leaf. That in turn made me very happy.

Service – The staff seemed rushed, which I assume was because this was the last slot. Still, they were kind enough to notice me saving cheru pazhams for later and offered me four extra at the end.

Distasteful Experience – Things went downhill during payasam service. They began serving before anyone had finished eating. As first-timers, my friends had spread food all over the leaf. I requested cups so they could properly enjoy the payasams. Over 15 minutes, I repeated this request to three different staff members, none of whom returned with cups. The fourth finally reluctantly brought three cups of payasam - but there were six of us. When I requested for three more, no one came back.

Five minutes later, I spotted another person from the restaurant and told him that we were 6 people but only received 3 cups, to which he replied, “Athinenthina choodavunne” (Why are you getting angry?). I was taken aback, and my friends noticed the change in his tone and immediately told me that they were fine without cups. Surprisingly, even after this bizarre exchange with a customer, this angry person (in a blue/black shirt) refused to get things in order and give us 6 cups with consecutive servings of 2 payasams. Instead, he joked that maybe I preferred the 2 payasams to be mixed together in one cup. After some back and forth, two of us ended up eating payasam directly off the leaf, and two of us never got the second payasam at all.

This same angry person congratulated one of my friends for eating from the leaf, declaring that he “knew how to enjoy food.” My friend took it sportingly, and we all had a laugh.

Although I find this whole behaviour towards a customer unprofessional, immature, and unnecessary. I cannot help being reminded that all this was triggered by a simple request for three more paper cups.

All in all, to any Malayali woman who is looking for a place to revisit some naadan food and vibes, you might just be reminded too much of Kerala — of how fragile...

I was asked by someone close, so I went with the same person, with loads of expectations and very much excited.

The moment we entered the staff didn't even bothered to welcome, we were just waiting for someone to let us know where to sit, felt like the staff was not expecting us for lunch.

We asked and then someone gave us a table.

Menu was good we were excited to have some nice dishes, we said we want the first 2 starters, and the lady said unfortunately those 2 items were not there today, which is fine our badluck we discussed and within 2 min in front of her with some of her suggestions we ordered 2 starters.

We clearly told that we want the fish in banana leaf one, but then when our 1st dish arrived we got a fried fish, we kindly asked them we had asked for the banana leaf fish, and not the fried one so if its fine can you please exchange, after confirmation she took that and brought our 2nd ordered starter, really tasty no complaints for King prawns fry really enjoyed, till now we all are still happy. Then our 2nd starter came after 15 min fair enough, it was a busy day and steaming takes time, we had no complains, after seeing the fish, my other friend asked the lady to suggest which rice goes well with that fish she suggested Kerla rice, we listened to her and asked her to get 1 kerla rice, and my other friend who was not at all well, she couldn't eat the starters so we decided to order Kerla chicken and Appam, now starts the main trouble, for just 1 Kerla rice and 2 appams and kerla chicken, took 36 minutes, 3 time we asking for how long will it take, and all our food getting cold.

If it was with everybody I would have never complained, but all other tables were getting all thier food, from fish fry, to beef roast, appam, egg fry , rice and I felt ashamed of stalking but all other tables got food and we are here with cold starters, an unwell friend waiting for her food, water which we got after asking for 2nd time and then after ages and several request our food.

The kerla chicken was but bland, but chicken pieces where like a couple of remaining chicken pieces where just added in the curry, didnt even njoyed it, the appams came a bit cold on our table, rice dont know why it took ages.

And over this even for bill, without us being rude to them, we had to ask them 2 times and then we got our bill.

So very much disappointed with the quality of service, sorry to say the staff was just kind of not in a mood to serve us but rest of the restaurant, don't know why they were upset with us, was it because we asked to change the dish which they gave us due to thier mistake, was it because we were non kerlaites, was it because we were too much humble and generous and we didnt even raised our voice.

Will never ask any one to visit, and definitely this was my 1st and last experience with this restaurant.

I always felt and experienced Kerla and Kerla people are good at...

I've been looking forward to trying this restaurant for a long time. I have recently seen some really good promotional videos on social media. I took my family out for lunch on a Sunday here. I was looking forward to trying a few different dishes.

It was disappointing to find out that many of the items we wanted to order weren't available. I also found it odd that the waitress said the Kerala chicken fry was not available but the item listed next to it on the menu which was the same dish in a larger portion was available. We ordered drinks and asked for tap water as well.

The first thing to arrive was some starters which we planned on sharing. No cutlery or tissues had arrived for the next 5 minutes. We had to get up and go and ask for this. While this was happening, half our drinks arrived. We had ordered a large beer to share between two people and only one glass came with this. We asked for two small glasses instead of one pint glass. When these glasses arrived one of them had a lipstick mark on the rim. We had to flag down someone again to replace that glass. Meanwhile our starters were getting cold.

When the next round of dishes arrived, which were the Chicken curry, garlic paratha, and mutton biryani, We again had to request spoons to be able to serve the dishes and share them between the group. We were halfway through our meal and had already had to get up or wave down people many times. We had requested tap water for the third time and still hadn't seen it.

Finally, the fish in banana leaf arrived. Unfortunately, this arrived so late that the accompanying rice and perota had already gone cold. We enjoyed the flavours, although they seem a little muted compared to similar restaurants that we have tried on East Ham high Street, which charge half the price for the same items. We finally got tap water. This was after four separate requests.

Also a note about the toilets and hand washing facilities, there was soap, but there is no dryer or any tissues available.

This restaurant has potential because there are unique dishes here and the interior is comfortable.

They really need to focus on providing good service because the service we got was similar to a fast food restaurant where we had to get up multiple times to ask for things like tissues, cutlery, changing glasses, and even tissues to wipe our hands after washing them.

I imagine if I was the owner of this restaurant I would be really frustrated because the concept is good, the food is good and the interior had been furnished well, but it is the service that is largely...