I've been in this venue when it was The Living room a few times. I thought I'd sample it in its newest form as The Slug and Lettuce, especially since its within shuffling distance of my work for some munchies before heading home.
Inside I like the colour scheme and decor - comfy cushions with some booth seats. I met my wee mum, and as we walked in, quickly discovered it was empty apart from a few business types having a drink. One side of the place is the bar, the other the restaurant and the guy behind the bar looked somewhat bemused that we wanted to eat, asking us if we had a booking. He said he'd go check in the restaurant which seemed odd considering it looked empty. Anyhoo he came back and we were directed to take our pick of seats in the restaurant so all good there, as we got a comfy seat and some water.
There was one other couple eating but apart from that the place was empty.
Theres a pretty big selection on the menu, burgers, salads and sandwich type things, some tarts and pies and some veggie and lighter options. I decided on the butternut salad whilst wee mum went for southern fried chicken on artisan bread with a side of chips. I had to laugh at the artisan bread (really just a standard chewy ciabatta ).
Now in an empty restaurant I would expect service to be pretty quick, so the forty minute wait seemed pretty excessive even although the waiter did say sorry about the wait. When my salad and the huge bowl of chips were brought out 5 minutes before my mums meal, it did seem like they were taking the mickey.
When I say a huge bowl of chips, I really do mean it - seriously this was a mammoth portion for £1.50 and my mum thought they were really pretty tasty, whereas I wasn't so fussed.
My salad was okay. I think that's all I can say about it really. Leaves in a bowl with some chickpeas and roast butternut squash and dressing on the side. My mum said similar of her sandwich - certainly nothing to write home about.
We were swaying over dessert, but I had a voucher I'd downloaded through their subscriber service so we had 25% off our bill, so we opted to share the salted caramel bar. This was an unusual long shape of exceptionally sweet chocolate with a layer of biscuit and caramel. Now I love my chocolate but I did find it just a bit sweet and I can't say it was that special.
Now maybe I'm not being fair, I mean it is a chain restaurant and the food was okay and service friendly; but for a new venue, the service was just too slow and the menu pretty uninspiring. Our meal only worked out at about £17 with the discount, but its definitely not somewhere I'll be rushing back to. read more