Al Hamra Kabob Grill Redondo beach — Restaurant in Redondo Beach

I am a continuous supporter of small restaurants before, during and present of the pandemic. As many close friends know, when I try a new restaurant, I don’t just order one or two items. In fact, I try to order as much variety as possible.

At Redondo Beach’s Al Hamra Halal Café, I order a total of $61.51 including four types of kebab meats, eight different mezze appetizers, and two desserts. What I received and tasted was pure disappointment for all items!!!

For appetizers, the kibbeh dough was extremely thick and mushy with very little meat and pine nuts inside. Also, there was only one kibbeh versus two of everything in the mezze platter! The meat filling in the samosa were a bit dry. The two falafel would turn vegetarians into carnivores – extremely dry and bland. Hummus, fries, and tabouli can use a heavy dose of seasoning. The only decent item was the yogurt cucumber salad.

The kebabs – chicken, kofta, lamb and beef as well as the chicken shawarma wrap were extremely overcooked to the level of jerky and also lacked seasoning. The final two items that were good are the desserts that were probably not make in-house but brought in – namoura cake (basbousa) also known as a syrup-soaked semolina cake and the kunafa (knafeh), a sweet rather savory version with clotted cream, a hint of sugared rose water, with crushed pistachio and spun kataifi (shredded phyllo).

In all honestly, if the owner and chef has no interest in making good food and representing Middle Eastern culture in a positive fashion, they should excuse themselves from the...

I am a huge fan of Al Hamra simply because this is the best mediterranean style food and restaurant around.

The owner or manager / employees are very friendly and want to you to enjoy the food. The most important part, the food is astronomically better than any other mediterranean around. Hummus is creamy and smooth with a flavor subtly unlike any other. The Gyro is the best I’ve found with a rich flavor and perfect amount of seasoning. Prices are very comparable if not better than any other place and they give you so much food with every order. When looking at what you pay and the quality of food you get, you can’t beat Al Hamra.

A really cool story of how I found the restaurant is that my girlfriend and I were in an Uber somewhere in Los Angeles. When talking to the driver who I believe was Lebanese, though don’t want to assume, we mentioned that we live in the Southbay. Well the rest of the car ride the driver could not stop talking about Al Hamra and how it is the best Mediterranean food in all of Los Angeles. He kept going on about how good it is, how it’s in Redondo Beach and how we have to go. Ever since then, my girlfriend and I make about a weekly trip there at minimum. That was about a year or two ago.

I hope everyone gets to try this amazing food and I wish nothing but the best for the restaurant and...

I love this place, it is my 1st prefer to go if i ever wanted to eat a similar food as in my country. Liked it, Loved it and never will get sick of it. I usually order either A2 or a combo dish, which is chicken-Kabab and kofta-Kabab sticks in one dish with a salad-side, garlic and spice with $12 it may not be on the menu but you can ask for it. Loved the Robiani rice and chicken [for 2 persons trust me you can't eat it alone xD ]. They have a really tasty desert: Baqlava(we call it baqlawa). Loved the Hummus which is served with my order [i don't really remember if they still do]. I usually take my friends to introduce them to the Arabic style of food ;) The place is clean and your order doesn't really take long. But, as a location, we had to make a U-turn twice at the first time. I would say that you will recognize it by the pink Ice-cream sign next to it. Things that i didn't like is the beef-Kabab, and Grape-leave i guess it's only mom who can cock them as i like :p other than that I would really recommend it, especially for the Arabic...