Rubbish food and poor service

Those who know me will know I love food… a little too much perhaps… and rarely leave anything on the plate.

Today, I went for lunch with me ol granny and me mam to a wee pub by the main coast road in Ellington, Northumberland. Last time I went, they did an absolutely superb lasange – Garfield would have been damned impressed. The pub is well sign-posted from the coast road.

Naturally I got lasange and I could just tell by looking at it that it wasn’t good. In fact, it was the worst piece of food in about a decade. I’m used to crappy food on camp in Libya, but at least it was edible. This *thing* – you could taste the gritty burnt mince separately from the “sauce” which was totally devoid of any cheesy taste, and the pasta was semi raw, and the top cheese layer had a wobbly omelette look to it. I complained, and hesistantly went for another meal – chicken breast in white wine sauce and three vegs

It came as a leg of chicken, in what was effectively white milk and unmixed white wine. The chicken itself was edible and plain. The carrots – totally tasteless, turnip hada transculent look to it. I ate half the chicken and left the rest and complain
ed again. Waitress apologised profusedly and loooking embarassed.

Finally, as we came to settle the bill with the bar lady, she was about to charge us the full bill when we pointed out the *crap* food. So she called her supervisor who insists we pay the full price. I bawked and said there is simply no way I am paying full price. She argued that I ate all the chicken, that I should pay in full. I corrected the silly woman that I ate half of it, and admitted the boiled potatoes were lovely, but left the rest of the crap. She said, I had a look at your plate and you had all of the chicken.

Bloody hell! I don’t buy a whole meal just to eat the chicken. I also pointed out that my companions had to wait for me and finished theirs before I had mine, and that we complained from the outset. I said I will pay for the drinks, they were really good, and my companion’s food, but no way I am paying for full price for the piece of crap I was served. I remained calm, but her implication of calling me a liar was starting to tempt me to just simply walk out, just leaving a bit of money on the bar.

She conceded in a huffy puffy sort of way – I suspect because we were talking up staff’s time, and holding other customers up who were listening with interest. Another couple remarked that they wished they had complained as their food was poor and waited well over an hour because the “cook left the oven off”.

Really shocking food, a service from the supervisor that would make arguing a bill in France with a rude Parisian waitress a pleasure. Sadly, I will not be going back there in a hurry.