We were invited here by good friends, so we had to bite our tongues at some of the rubbish served up, but it spoiled what should have been a great night. We will never return here again.
There's not much refinement here and certainly no finesse. Most of the starter choices don't involve much hard work by a cook. The menus sit on their website. I ordered prawn cocktail (£6.75) but the prawns were an unpleasant eat. The problem with the prawns was defrosting.
This marred what should have been great flavour and made for an unpleasant fish texture, but I'm not sure if it was improper freezing at factory source, defrosting under cold water, which will certainly have this effect or defrosting, refreezing and defrosting again. In each case this destroys the delicate texture and subtle flavour of prawns.
The owners should buy a bag of M&S Greenland prawns, defrost in a fridge and taste them to find out how these subtle, delicate morsels should taste and be served. They'd get 10 portions out of a bag. A proper chef would know that a little bit of French brandy in the cocktail sauce would also significantly help taste too and at £6.75 a portion an accountant might know it wouldn't break the bank.
The prawns served here were well destroyed and not worth the £6.75 charged, in fact they were only fit for the cat or if there's no cat then the bin. At this point we would have left, if not for the fact we were guests.
My wife had the same starter. I knew from her face that she disliked the prawns too as she was sipping alcohol to wash away the taste. That's not her.
I ordered a fillet steak main, cooked medium, with French fried onions. The steak was fairly good but not 28 day dry aged. At near £29 it should be at least 28 day dry aged.
My steak was cooked/served nearer to well done but I'm not precious about this. But the so-called semi solid, gloopy pepper sauce was revolting. It's included in the £29 price of the steak. If it's not out of a box with a heavy flour base it should be, it was rank.
Likewise the French fried onion batter (£3.5) was thick, oil saturated, not crisp and just terrible. It amazes me that folks can live on a reputation and get away with awful throwback food that should have stayed in the 1970's.
I'm astonished too that the owners are satisfied in themselves to serve this grim food to customers, I couldn't do it. I have a tip for the cooks here; go to the Linenhill restaurant nearby at Banbridge and sample a chef's pepper sauce and French fried onions - both are wonderful.
My wife also had steak and she barely touched her pepper sauce, so it sat visibly congealing and it formed a shiny dark top cracked skin from the heavy use of flour. It went back to the kitchen where it should never have been allowed to leave.
I offered our hosts my French fried onions and they ate them, otherwise they too would have gone back to the kitchen. One of our hosts ordered mushrooms with his steak. He didn't get them rather they ended up on my wife's plate. She hadn't ordered mushrooms.
They looked unappetising, small, over cooked and like they came out of a tin. They too went back to the kitchen uneaten.
The lemon meringue pie was quite good but while the lemon filling was beautifully tart and the meringue too was darn good the pie base should be made using salted butter particularly at £5.75 for what was a mean portion.
They didn't have bitter lemon to go with gin. We were offered a sparkling water based lemon san pellegrino to put in the gin. No thanks. Likewise their English mustard isn't Colman's so evidence of penny pinching. We had rubbish Irish coffees too. Poorly made and so diluted they were quite unpleasant.
The gents toilet was cold, it has a stainless steel urinal, a rusty hand dryer and no toilet tissue. I was going to tell the young serving staff but I thought if they couldn't be arsed (pun intended) to check why should I. So I didn't.
I hope this review improves things for future guests but we will not benefit as we won't return and thankfully we were guests, I'd have hated to hand over my hard earned here but then we would have left at the starters.
Just barely 2 stars as I don't think I can justify one star but it really, really, really is a close run thing. read more
