"Like most people who have left reviews for this place, I came here because I was staying at Sandos Monaco and when I checked in, they gave me a voucher entitling me to a free meal at their sister site (Sandos Suites) which has an Indian restaurant called Khas Mahal. After i 'd booked which day to eat at the restaurant, on the day of, I decided to check out reviews on TripAdvisor. Perhaps that was a mistake, I read all the complaints and for the most part they are all valid. As i 'd already booked, I decided to check the place out myself and I was really impressed with the decor, with the staff (especially the guy who greeted me at the door and the woman who served me). The staff are truly lovely, made me feel welcome and it 's a damn shame, they could work in a much higher standard of place. So the food then...the starters weren 't too bad. The poppadoms were crisp and they brought me another round of bhaji poppadom as I had gone through the first lot so quick. I was offered some more of the potato based starter, but didn 't take them up on it. The dips were so so, I asked for something spicy and I was brought out a sauce that, while warm, was not nearly as hot as I would have liked (nor did it taste like what I would expect from an Indian restaurant). Then the first dish that really threw me....the soup. I don 't understand how that soup was made, or why it tasted the way that it did. But i had a couple of spoons and left the rest. It tasted like £1 tinned vegetable soup, the kind with loads of vegetables in it. It didn 't taste authentic, not even in the slightest. If you 'd told me a student with a limited cupboard had put it together, i would have believed you. For it to have come in a restaurant, an Indian one at that? It was just so very much out of place. The main was iffy, but I finished it because I was hungry. I had the mushroom and ginger rice which is a nice concept, but it didn 't work. The vegetable curry was quite watery and it didn 't really have much of a distinct flavour to it. I did ask for it to be very spicy (and i 'm sure I emphasised that). What they did was throw a dollop of that same hot sauce i 'd requested for the poppadom. Didn 't even hide it, it was sitting there on top of my vegetables when the bowl was put down. I keep coming back to the staff because they were just amazing. I don 't understand how you can pair such lovely staff with such out of context food. Like a lot of people have said, it 's just not authentic. I am speaking as somebody who had the vegetarian options though, so I don 't know whether the meat dishes are any better. Would I go there again? I can 't imagine I would. Would I recommend it to anybody? Only as a joke (as in, see how bad this is) I 'm from the West Midlands, UK, where Indian food is cherished. In our country, our national dish for a long time was Vindaloo, we know something about Indian food. I 've travelled to India and i 've eaten out there, too! I *know* what authentic Indian food tastes like, and unfortunately, Khas Mahal just doesn 't cover itself in glory. Maybe if they renamed to Terry 's Cheap Eats and removed all hint of India from their dish titles, it would get positive reviews, because as i 've said several times, the staff and the service were amazing. 2/5 and that 's generous..."
