Green Dragon — Restaurant in Braintree

Booked a table for 1pm, 7/5/22 arrived 10 minutes early and was shown to a table at the back of the restaurant and given menus. 5 minutes later, a young man asked did we want a drink, which we ordered. The drinks arrived, shortly after. We had already chosen what we were going to eat and the menus were closed. At no point was the server ready to take our order. After being in the restaurant for over 20 minutes, I went to the bar area and informed another young man how long we had been waiting for service to which he replied he would be over straight away to take the order. Whilst ordering we were informed there were no chips, only fries. (Not a problem for me, but there’s jacket potatoes on the menu couldn’t someone make a real chip) Starter arrived Pate was ok. Mains arrived I had ordered steak and peppercorn sauce the sauce was not there so I had to ask. My husbands meal was the lamb hot pot pie with mash and veg, the mash and veg were hot but when he took the top of the pasty off of the pie the lamb was cold as if it had been defrosted in a microwave and forgotten to have been warmed up. Obviously this was sent back. By the time he had a new meal returned I had finished my meal. When my husband had finished his meal we waited again for someone to acknowledge that he had finished or even that we were still there. In the end we got up and asked for the bill which (Amy) was aware of the pie disaster and adjusted the bill by £3.74. I personally think the value of his meal should have been deducted after all of the bad experiences within one visit. Not happy with this experience and it turns out that the lady next to us had a similar thing...

The Green Dragon has a nice set up, with plenty of outdoor seating. Indoors it is a nice layout with a good feel about the building. Staff were pleasant on our arrival seating us promptly. We were not rushed in placing our order for food and the menu was fantastic for the choices available at about average prices. I ordered the king prawns for a starter and was disappointed on it arrival. "King" prawns is probably an exaggeration as they were not very king in size. Further to this I got five quite tasteless prawns, which if I was paying around £4 would have been fair but I paid over £6 for them. Very disappointing start to my meal. I ordered the mixed grill for my main. It arrived on a large plate but was dominated by chips and peas. I had a small piece of rump steak which I ordered as medium cooked. It was definitely not cooked to medium. It was very rare and the cut was like chewing on a tyre it was so grisly. We ordered the garlic and cheese ciabatta also, this was very doughy and I could not eat it. Not once was I asked if the food was okay during our meal, which yes you could say I should have complained, but I was trying to grin and bare it as to not spoil my wife's meal too. However my wife had a burger and chips and it looked great. She was very happy with it and her dessert of apple and BlackBerry crumble pie. It did smell lovely, only negative on the dessert was a lack of custard. It's a shame my meal let it down, as my wife was happy and would go back again, I wasnt so happy and although I would get a pint, I would struggle to bring myself to eat there again. Pictures of medium cooked rump steak and my garlic...

What a disaster of an evening. We had booked a table for 5 on a Friday night, and it was laughable experience. We had a reduced menu, because they didn't have a proper chef and they were told they weren't allowed to shut the kitchen (which they should have) however there was just enough to choose from. We all ordered starters and mains, only to be told 10 minutes later that the grill had broken so no burgers or hunters chicken. This reduced an already small menu, but nonetheless we chose something else and carried on. 5 minutes later the poor waitress had to come and tell us there was no calamari left for the starters so 3 of us had to order something else. (There was only 3 options for starters to begin with). The table opposite had ordered the chicken pie, and they couldn't cut through it. This didn't leave much hope for our mains. Our expectations were already on the floor for our main course, so we were all surprised when it turned out to be edible. Nothing worth returning for, but better than we were expecting. We asked our waitress to double check if all the desserts were available, and were glad we did when it turned out they didn't have one.

Honestly, it was such a disaster it was laughable. And we did a lot of laughing, after the mistakes just kept coming. Not just for us but for all the tables around us.

A big thank you to our waitress Skye, she did a wonderful job with the bad hand she was delt that evening. Its a shame the green king doesn't care about its franchises, because this could be a real gem. Unfortunately I won't be returning, there's much better places to spend your money. Don't bother...