Right. I'm beginning to feel jinxed. I have had TWO bad meals out in a fortnight, both of which were in hotels so maybe I will be avoiding such places for e next while. Last night we went out for a meal in the Bar 'n' Grill at the Templeton. It felt like some sort of hotel outpost, we were far away from the main hotel which seemed nice enough, but we were in the annex that normally serves the breakfast, in plain sight were the chillers complete with juice and bowls of fruit for the hotel guests morning buffet, we got the feeling that we were shoved into the breakfast room and a few shitty wobbly tables were thrown together to make it look like a setting for dinner, minus the normal tablecloth and placemats.
The menu arrived and I was impressed, it was VAST, at least a dozen starters, main courses and all varieties of steak, fish, chicken etc in hindsight the phrase 'less is more' springs to mind, really if they tried only a few items and actually cooked them well it would be better. I must say however that this place is heaving, it's really busy and I honestly don't know why. I ordered the goats cheese to start, it was neither warm nor cold, insipid and bland in a crumb coating which by the taste of it had been sitting an absolute age because the breadcrumbs were soggy, next up was the risotto with artichoke, peas, green beans and tomato. Tasteless and lukewarm (despite being served on a roasting hot dish) far too thick and claggy, not a dish to be repeated. I had ordered Parmesan and Rosemary skinny fries which never came, but when I reminded the bewildered looking waitress they arrived nice and hot but minus any Rosemary. We were a large (ish) party and from what I saw amongst the other guests they thought the same as me, my OH shared a starter platter with a fellow carnivore and a whole pile of deep fried rubbish arrived, greasy onion rings, sesame chicken strips which looked like they came out of the ark, fish cakes that were truly horrible, bland bland bland and without the much anticipated duck wontons as promised on the menu, they came later (again after asking) but did not look like they were worth the wait. Steaks were cold, the wrong orders arrived but the fellow guests made do, (mainly due to the lengthy wait and everyone was ravenous) and don't even get me started on what the garlic mushrooms looked like, suffice it to say I have seen better things having been projectile vomited out of my cats mouth (and arse).
The service was desperately slow, we had the table booked for 7.30 and at 10.30 the deserts had not arrived, it was woeful. A waitress was particularly unpleasant when eventually the few deserts that had been ordered arrived, but one desert was wrong so she took it away in a big snotty huff worthy of an over tired pre schooler, never to return again. I ordered an espresso to keep me right for the journey home but once again it was COLD and really awful. I suppose if you were three sheets to the wind this would be a great meal out for you, or if you had been marooned on a desert island with nothing but grass to eat but honestly don't bother in any other case. Understaffed, menu too big, greedy to get as many customers in as possible, the next thing they will be seating you out in the car park. We had not finished our meal when the waitress started to set up the vacated tables for breakfast, and started bringing out boxes of All Bran and Special K. Honestly! It was cheap I will give them that, but for 2 balls of stale goats cheese and a slap of reheated old risotto quite frankly I wouldn't have liked to pay more.
The biggest mystery to me is why the place was so busy when the food was so bad. Crap. Stay home or heat up a Lean Cuisine. read more
