Mulberry Tree Brewers Fayre — Restaurant in Braintree

I walked in with table of 8. Never pre booked it was 2pm on a Saturday, was told an hour wait there wasn't even 2 x 4 seats next to each other.

We was seated. Picked from the menu....to then be informed that we have to order at the bar (quite surprised at this....even Toby carvery do table service) all orders was taken at the bar. we had a child whom chose from the kids menu consisting of starter main and dessert......

Mains was dished out with least 7 mins between to the point one person had finished their meal while others just got served. The child's meal starter and main was served together.. surely there is a reason it's called a starter veg sticks and a dip as you can see from the picture attached it was not much of a dip compared to the sauces which was served. The lamb shank was the fattest I have ever seen a big chunk of fat majority of the joint. Salmon was commented to be nice in taste and had ample sauce. The crustless quiche was not crustless as it had a crust bottom....So for all you slimming world members know you have to sin for that. The mixed grill was ok no comments ample serving.

So give or take around 20 mins after eating dinner we ordered desserts. I ordered the muddy pie was told it is served hot. When received it was cold and hard....served with ice cream you would imagine it would be at least room temperature, this was rectified as complained. On complaining I asked why hadn't the child's meal dessert come out....surely you should know what was ordered.

Entering the restroom I was disgusted to receive it with toliet seat up and the stains was unbelievable, this shows it cudnt be cleaned regularly.

On returning home after the meal....I actually vomitted it back up, distance of 10 mins by car surely that wasn't right.

So there you go! My review.

I would say when prompted staff was helpful and when complained it was rectified. There is a children's area which the children seemed to enjoy....inside and outside within...

So we stopped here for a bite to eat before our flight from Stansted airport and again following our return flight before heading home.

On the first occasion we sat on table #53 and were served by both Louis S and Alison B. On the second occassion we sat on table #50 whereby we were served again by the lovely Alison.

We thoroughly enjoyed our food on both visits, we highly recommend the Buttermilk Goujons for starters. The Breaded Mushrooms were lovely albeit on the first occasion the outer Breaded part was quite difficult to get into with the fork to cut. (Warning they are very hot, but lovely) The Lasagne (inc. piece of Garlic Bread and Salad) and Gammon (inc. Egg, Pineapple, Skin on Fries & Peas) were great for Mains. Some of the best Mains we've had in a variety of restaurants of late.

On the second occasion we also had room to fit an Caramel Apple Betty and Mini Knickerbocker Glory Sundae.

We need to say thank you to the chef Dave on the latter occassion.. not sure who the chef was on our first visit but thank you anyway.

Really good food with great service 👌. Good value for money. We ordered from the Value Meals (available 12-6pm Mon-Fri) 2 Mains for £11.49 with selected Starters or Desserts an extra £2.99.

In terms of the Bottomless Softdrink, this is self served from the machine. (£3.50) Although the signage enroute above appears to resmeble the Pepsi logo the options include Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Schweppes Lemonade, Fanta & Dr Pepper.. (with flavours)..

We liked the fact that Alison offered to refill our drink and also bring the card machine to us, we felt she was super engaging, lovely, polite, friendly and professional.

We will certainly...

Food is what you'd expect from this sort of chain. Some of the carvery veg had obviously been sitting out for a while but when asked if there was any fresher stuff it was brought out. They were very overwhelmed today, understaffed and it seemed like they must have had a mad rush in the early afternoon. Our table was booked for 4pm. The beef was sold out, turkey was having the last few slices carved off as we ordered and the only thing left was gammon which took another 5 minutes til it was ready which probably done about 15 plates They done the best they could, the staff were having to run between taking orders and serving customers due to low staff so well done to them as must have been stressful. Children were pleased with their choices and enjoyed the play areas. Probably the only negative is the desserts. The children's desserts are 99p which is good but my teen ordered the triple brownie dessert off the adult menu which was 4.99, it was a tiny bit bigger than the 99p one that my younger child ordered and came with chocolate sauce but not 4 quids worth 🤷🏻‍♀️ so maybe order kids desserts if you're going to pick chocolate brownies and...