My mum & i went to The Tavern for sunday lunch on 27th November 2011. We had pre booked a table & on arrival , we were taken straight to our seats & the lady ,who we assumed to be the manager /proprieter said she would take our drinks order & someone would be back for our food order. Drinks came promptly, however it was another 15 minutes before anyone came for our food order ! I had ordered a starter of black pudding on a salad with a poached egg & my mum had ordered vegetable soup.My starter was good , mums soup however was warm & not piping hot as she'd hoped it would be . For main course i had ordered roast chicken & my mum had ordered the roast welsh lamb. My chicken dinner was lovely i have to say, unfortunately , the lamb was a huge disappointment ! My mum said it was full of gristle , not a lot of meat on it & very hard to chew.After trying a bit more my mum finally complained ( in a very polite way ) , the waitress seemed surprised & said that there had not been any other complaints about the lamb that day. My mum said that she couldn't eat it. Eventually they ( the waitress & so called Michelen trained chef ) offered my mum some roast beef instead.
When the bill came , a total of £ 37.35 i was not happy to pay the full amount due to the lamb being inedible. the waitress went away then came back & said that they had given my mum the roast beef as compensation so they wouldn't knock anything off the toal bill. I remarked that the beef was a pound cheaper so would they at least take that off the bill ? The waitress went away , came back , and said no because they had given us beef instead & there was nothing wrong with the lamb !
We have been going to The Tavern for over 20 yrs & have never had a bad meal or been treated with such a lack of good will. The lamb was advertised as roast well lamb, but turned out to be neck of lamb , therefore it should have been slowly cooked & not roasted !
We will never go there again! read more