Castle Carvery - Racecourse — Restaurant in Broadland

Myself my wife, parents, young niece and my child attended The castle carvery today for what we hoped would be a lovely relaxing family meal. I could only describe it as pure hell on earth. We arrived at 12 queued up outside in the cold. We were told to wait at the bar for our name to be called. When ordering at the bar we were told we could not order my nieces food as the rest of us were having a carvery and the table needed to be allocated first. We waited around 15 minutes to be allocated a table with two young children. This was done however once led to the table to find out the table number once we got there ( Table 1) my dad and I then had to walk back to the bar to order my nieces food. The place was beyond packed and a squeeze to walk through. Once ordering this we then had to return back to the table where because we were waiting on food to arrive it meant myself and my dad waited at the table with the two children whilst my wife and mum queued up for the carvery. This took 30 minutes! My niece ate her food alone whilst waiting .By the time they arrived back myself and my dad were no longer hungry. We then had to queue to get our food. This took a further 20 minutes and was very noisy and stressful. By the time we returned to our table to eat our food my wife and mother had finished their food. My food and my dad’s food was warm but not really hot. I wasn’t too bothered but my dad wasn’t particularly keen as he likes his food hot. Whilst my dad and I had been in the queue of hell my mum went to the bar to order desert in anticipation of things not going to plan. After my dad and I eventually finished our food. The desert still took another 20 minutes before it arrived and when it did only my mother’s and wife’s arrived. My mother prompted staff that we were waiting on further deserts. Another 5 minutes and ice cream arrived for the kids 5 minutes from there my dads desert arrived and the waiter did not seem aware that I was waiting for my Mine around 10 Minutes later mine finally arrived and it was fantastic. What should have been a relaxing family meal turned out to be stressful and disjointed. We did not manage to eat our food together and have proper family chat because we spent the whole time waiting in ridiculously long queues and when we did order deserts to come all at the same time not even they came out together. It really was pretty much the worst experience I’ve ever had eating out. The staff were nice but it was just a complete disaster from...

Unfortunately I feel I have to update my previously positive review of this establishment but I'll leave the old one below. From our experience it has fallen steeply from the past pleasant times we've had here and seems quieter every time we go. The glasses we were served in had very dirty rims which the bartender either didn't notice or didn't care about; the dirty layer was relatively easily wiped away by a finger, suggesting that poor washing practices are in place. The food was quite terrible, some of the problems were:

Mashed potato was simultaneously gluey and lumpy. Roast potatoes were a bit greasy inside and had a chewy exterior. Stuffing was so tough I had to ask my fiancee to get some for me as I was holding our toddler at the time and there was no chance I could get it one handed. Veg was excessively dried out. Parsnips were burned on the outside and slightly underdone in the middle. Cauliflower cheese had no discernable texture difference between the cauliflower and the cheese sauce, summed up in one word, mush.

Some of the issues seem to be with there being no lids for the food when there are no customers present which leads to it all drying out. A staff member did come to clear our table promptly but no one asked how our meal was during the whole visit.

The floor was at least clean this time unlike the last time where several tables and floor underneath weren't cleared or cleaned when we arrived and remained so throughout our visit.

We visited at around 6pm on a Friday which I'd hardly call off peak for a restaurant but even still it was perhaps 30 percent full, which is similar to the last few times we've been.

I'm not sure what happened to this place as when I first started visiting around six years ago it was very nice, and one of my fiancées favourite places to go for dinner; a real shame.

Original 4 star: "The Racecourse is a nice place to go for dinner every once in a while, if a little uninspired and underwhelming. It’s a tidy place and the food is fresh, subject to the usual caveats for carveries; quieter times will usually mean the food is a little less fresh. Service isn’t outstanding but is adequate for the type of venue. I wouldn’t recommend this place if you want anything vegetarian off the menu as the options...

We have been here a quite a lot and had our children's birthday parties here before but feel it's gone down hill quite a bit recently. Dec last yr my husband booked a meal for my birthday for 9 of us, we were seated by the door that goes through to the play area which was constantly being open and closed and it was freezing before we had even taken our coats off so we asked to be moved, lady kinda grunted and walked off to see about moving us, which they did and told us we had to finish by a certain time as table we were moved to was reserved. Sunday before last we took our youngest to soft play, altho there wasn't many people up there to begin with it was untidy. Sunday just gone my youngest attended her friends birthday party there, we arrived at 2 and went upstairs, friends had already cleared and wiped down 2 tables themselves to be able to sit down, we then moved another table over and wiped that down ourselves and there were 3 table full of plates, plastic cups ect aswell as all the side by the bin covered in dirty plates ect and even with staff walking back and forth numerous times empty handed it was 40 minutes before anyone started to clear any tables ect then gave them a little wipe, not even the full table top as I could still see food and drink on the table.

When it came to the children's party food all was fine until they brought ice-cream, my daughter only likes plain ice cream which they served in a metal bowl, my daughter asked what was in her bowl as she was about to eat and it had what appeared to be 2 large dried on lumps of cookie dough or something similar. I understand it may not all come off in the dishwasher but if you place the bowls out and go to add a scoop of icecream why would you use that bowl seeing that it's dirty!

Our friends who's daughters birthday party it was also had issues with other things... being over charged £20, lady butchering the birthday cake when cutting it up are just a couple.

Our daughter had asked for her party to be arranged for here end of this month but we won't be booking any...