On the last bank holiday, I had a rare day where I wasn't working and baby-free so decided to go for lunch with my mum. The last time we'd been was before lockdown with my parents and in-laws and the food and service was fantastic. We were keen to go back.
But, what happened since then? We ordered chicken pakora as a starter and two Balmoral Chicken meals as mains. The chicken for the pakora was fine but the sauce wasn't as good as when we went before. It wasn't mixed properly for a start. It had swirls of white through it. As for the Balmoral Chicken meal, the bacon was really fatty. We had broccoli but it was poor quality broccoli. The chunk on my plate was yellow on one side. I have better broccoli in my freezer right now. The carrots were alright but again, could have cooked them better myself. I gave the baby sweetcorn to my mum as I'm not a fan of that anyway but she said that something wasn't right about it. That it didn't taste right. It's not like my mum to not eat her veggies (she loves them). Even the chips weren't as good as last time. They were ok but they were so deliciously crispy last time. I don't know what has happened over lockdown. New chef? New supplier? Goodness knows.
However, even the staff were less friendly. Colder than when we went before.
We didn't bother with dessert or coffees as we didn't want to be disappointed further :(
In addition, the social distancing wasn't great. Our table was backed on to another table and there's no way there's was a 1m gap between our table and the one behind us. After visiting other restaurants in August this was probably the worst I'd been in for social distancing.
