The Khayber — Restaurant in Northern Ireland

I hate leaving bad reviews , but if this is the best Indian Restaurant in Northern Ireland as one reviewer described it ? Then you need to get over the water and taste some decent curry . I am over here visiting family from England , having read the reviews i thought this is THE place . Alarms should have gone off when placing my largish take away order and being told it would be ready in 15 minutes ? We picked the order up from pleasant enough staff and whipped it HOME . What we found was very disappointing . The poppadoms were inedible , very stale , and obviously old . The onion relish was sour to taste , and they had forgotten the yogurt dip .Not a good start we couldn't eat the poppadoms and dips! Seriously inedible !! The curries we ordered were terrible the balti probably the best .The king prawns in the jalfrezi really small and overcooked . The Tandoori mixed grill was very disappointing , again some of meats i think had been hanging about a bit , nobody ate the lamb . There was a lot of it left on plates. The naans were well naans not great doughy not fresh . The best bit was probably the rice, we ended up fighting over the rice to fill our plates lol, but even then not great . They can boil rice though. There was a lot of left over food for the bin .We are not skin flints , but it wasn't cheap either . We eat curry in Birmingham England and i guess spoilt for choice finding good curry. We use the Viceroy in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter which is very comparable in price ( slightly high for brum ) the food is super fresh , with super fresh quality ingredients , specials of the day boards etc , delicious sit in or takeaway . This was incomparable sorry Khayber . I'm a regular visitor to the shores and have been planning to visit this restaurant for a for a while very disappointed . I'm perplexed how this place gets such good reviews. I've just read an article in about the history of this restaurant , the skill and knowledge of the chefs, quality of the ingredients etc i'm evn...

We eat here around half a dozen times a year and would always have recommended the experience to friends and family.

However, our recent visit, last Saturday evening, was very disappointing.

Service was EXTREMELY slow for us, unlike two other tables in our vicinity, one with three covers, the other six, both arrived after us, and their orders were taken and food served much more quickly.

It all started with our cold dining plates, which are normally set down sizzling hot. The reluctant waiter was not happy at my polite request to find us hot plates, and we had to wait 10 minutes for them to arrive.

There was then a further 10 minute wait for our food, which came to the table so cold, the sauces were starting to congeal. When we quietly pointed this out we had 3 waiters blustering around clearing the table and making a scene.

We were on the verge of settling the bill for our starters and drinks and leaving when, 15 minutes later, our original mains dishes were returned to the table heated up, with fresh sides. We know they were our original dishes because they were absent the food we had plated, but didn't eat, which had obviously been thrown out.

We have always found the Khayber's food to be excellent and service there has always been gracious, friendly and professional and we find ourselves wondering if there has been a change of management since our last visit in November, as this occasion was sadly lacking.

There should at the very least have been an apology, along with a complimentary drink, or some small goodwill demonstrated on our bill... but we received no acknowledgement from the restaurant that it had fallen short of delivering its normally good service and there was no apology or goodwill forthcoming.

We didn't leave our usual 20% tip, and, we...

Would usually go here at least 1 Saturday each month. Food is fine hence the 2 stars. Place could do with a bit of a spring clean, but that is not the reason for 2 Stars. I am getting so fed up with places like this advertising they are open to a certain time, in this case 2pm, and when you turn up at 1.35pm, (if you can tell the time), that is 25 mins before 2pm only to be refused as they are closed or closing, I mean, what sort of service is that? Closing at 2pm means exactly that, or am I missing the point. Do they not want the business, is it too much of a problem? Maybe their clock was wrong!, I do not know and do not really care now another one struct of my list. I went here once a month at least, sometimes more, with another person, and also the odd takeaway so it is on average about £950 spend in a year that some other resturant will now get. A lesson for these places that advertise incorrect information, Business are closing all over, either advertise correctly , facilitate your clients or you could end up on the list of those businesses that are a victim of their own downfall!

Update Ok, been back here a few times, but in the evening when they are actually opened at the times they say they are. Must have brought new clocks! Anyhow , my issue before was not with the food or service, it was with the times they say they are opened and the actual times they are opened. Must say food is really nice, cannot fault it, all very tasty and full of flavour. Staff attentive and polite. Will go back more in...