Randa

Lebanese cuisine is one of my favourite for being tasty healthy fresh and with such variety, Randa Restaurant has always ticked all the boxes.

Great location, relaxed service and always delicious.

Best Lebanese food in London.
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10 Overall rating
Food 10 | Service 10 | Atmosphere 9 | Value for money 10
Saturday, January 21, 2012

Since I am a lazy human being, I very rarely write reviews. Not least because I find that even the few minutes which are required to register (to any site) are a waste of my (precious) time. But, boy, this RANDA "restaurant", really left me with the unquenchable urge of communicating my feelings to the readers of london-eating.

In short: RANDA is the worst (Lebanese) restaurant I have been to in London. I have put Lebanese between brackets since, as far as my seven years life in London are concerned, it would still rank as the worst restaurant even outside the Lebanese category.

Some details: we only ordered a selection of starters, or mezze, as they are known. Thank God that we did not venture into the main courses as the mezze were either a nightmare come true or a cruel, cynical joke. Before the mezze were brought to the table, we were offered a basket with raw vegetables inside which all looked very sad (for instance, there was an old looking whole (!) capsicum ... one might wonder what I was supposed to do with it): in fact, the basket was taken from a collection of them which was lying on a dusty shelf in the middle of the dining hall. The feeling was that it probably had waited for us forever). Then the mezze: Presentation was awful (left-overs from previous tables?), taste totally absent. The Moussaka, a cold mezze made of aubergines, was actually freezing cold (literally, just taken out from a freezer; unedbile!). Of the hot mezze I only remember the "falafel" (possibly, because of the trauma I experienced, a self-defence mechanism of my mind has erased recollection of the others): the fried coating was grotesquely thick and I really don't want to know which oil was used and how many times; the core of the falafel was an exotic mix of tasteless vegetables. Exotic in the sense that you could tell that there was not any meat inside but it was impossible to tell anything more specific of the deployed ingredients.

Conclusion: eat there if you are chronically depressed because only if you have severe psychiatric issues you might fail to realize how utterly tragic this place is. It really makes me wonder that restaurant such as RANDA exist and/or manage to survive. My theory is that, generally speaking, customers in London are so poorly educated that that they allow such inefficiencies to persist: horrendously poor service goes unpunished in London.
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Saturn
0 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Saturday, July 02, 2011

Having read the other reviews, we had been a bit reluctant to try out this place. Three of us had a late lunch there anyway this Saturday afternoon (enticed by its prime location in Ken Church Street). Whilst the food was par for the course, the service, if thats the right word for what we got, was unfriendly, sloppy and grudging at best. Guess they have sufficient passing trade due to the location and do not care about the rest. Really odd though to have this place completely staffed by miserable & uncaring people who so obviously dislike working in the catering & hospitality trade!

Never again!!
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2 Overall rating
Food 4 | Service 0 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 4
Saturday, July 10, 2010