My girlfriend suggested that we go to Manor Farm last night. Although she's been before, this was…read moremy first visit, and she felt that our experience last night was fairly typical.
We were seated straight away, at a table which although had been cleared of the previous diners debris, the table had not been wiped. This however was rectified straight away, although not particually enthusiastically.
The menu has a good selection of food, and is reasonably well laid out, and we quickly made our choice, which then came to the ordering. This being essentially a pub restaurant, you have to queue at the bar to make your order. Which would normally be acceptable, however Manor Farm only has one till dedicated to food orders, and as a result if you arrive at a busy time, have to stand in line quite a long time to place your order. As I mentioned earlier this appears to be the norm, and a long wait to order food is part of the 'Manor Farm experience'.
Having had to wait a long time to order, I was expecting an equally long wait to actually get our food, however I was quite wrong! Our meals arrived within about 10 minutes.
My girlfriend had the steak pudding with pepper sauce. She enjoyed it, but warns that the pepper sauce is a lot more peppery than you might expect. However this did not distract for her enjoyment, as why would you order pepper sauce if you did not enjoy pepper???
I had the cheese, pea and green bean chimichanga (sp?), for the light bites menu. This was full of flavour, and far better than I was expecting.
The prospect of another long wait at the bar put us (me) off the idea of having a dessert, so we retired to the bar.
Sadly, and bearing in mind this place was only refurbished about four years ago, I felt that the décor and furniture were starting to get a bit tired.
We will no doubt return in the future, if only because it is round the corner, so we can walk there easily. Sadly it is nothing special for the hundreds of other pubs in the area, and I would not be tempted to travel any great distance.
The whole experience would be so much better if they could sort out the system for ordering food.