White Hart Toby Carvery — Restaurant in Colchester

We came out for an impromptu roast dinner as we all fancied one. 2 Adults and 1 Child and it all started so well. The manager was lovely and we got taken to our seats within 2 minutes of arriving. We seemed to queue for the carvery for a very long time, and when it got to my turn I decided to go King Size purely for the extra room and sausages, well, there weren't any so I didn't get any but they still pursued with the £1.99 extra. Then we move onto the meats, these were actually good for a change. Normally they can be quite chewy at his Toby but the meat actually melted in your mouth. Now.. the veg... Well first of all there was no mash, the stuffing was dry and crumbly, both sets of roast potatoes were borderline raw and some were actually still raw. The veg was incredibly hard to the point a lot of people were leaving it from what we could see. There was a dangerous part to it though, the spoons were left so close to the heat lamp that a lot of people from what I saw were burning themselves, I do think the Toby needs to rethink this concept and move the spoons to the front well labelled or use spoons that don't conduct so much heat. Next the gravy and sauces, well, there weren't any. The gravy bowls were all empty with perhaps a couple of tablespoons worth in each furthermore the sauces were empty with the exception of horseradish. We all sat down and started eating, most of which was lovely except that mentioned above, the smaller roast potatoes were borderline cooked and the bigger ones raw so I think some training needs to be given to the chefs, they weren't even crispy. We decided to order dessert to try to make the most of the evening, Logan has some ice cream with a flake with had melted somewhat because it had been sat so long, I had the seasonal strawberry jam sponge with tepid custard, it was barely even warm and Emma had the seasonal crumble also with tepid custard and semi hard fruit. The drinks were ok! I just want to point out though that the waitress was really lovely and despite everything that was going on she was so polite and chatty. There wasn't really a lot she could do, it's not like a normal restaurant where you can get a...

Jess our waitress was so obliging, she took a note of my disability (spinal operations) and seated us where we felt I was going to be most comfortable. There was no problem with this as they had booked us onto another unsuitable table. Very welcoming. She explained the menu and checked our discount code was still valid. All good. We had such a pleasant portion of meat with all the trimmings and Jess mentioned that if we were struggling she could do the left overs to take out! Lovely young lady who is a real credit to your team, as was everyone to be fair. The food wasn’t dry or didn’t seem to have been sitting long under the heat lights. The chef was even prepared to carry my plate to my table as I cannot lift and hold a heavy plate for long, however I had my carer with me. Nothing was too much trouble for Jess and we had a nice relaxing carvery. I have a local carvery 1 mile from me (Clacton) but they don’t get our custom due to several reasons so it was a 28 mile round trip to the Colchester Toby. It was well worth the drive. All the other customers around us were so friendly to and we laughed and joked with others. I wasn’t put in a corner because of my non visible disability, which was a nice change. When it came to paying,(debit card) I asked Jess if I could leave her a tip for excellent service and welcoming smiles. She said it’s not necessary and our thanks and gratitude were to her enough, but I wanted to leave the 25% off voucher amount to Jess. She explained how the card terminal worked for giving tips, she didn’t even look at the amount I entered into card machine. She explained she comes to work as she enjoys making people happy, not for the tips; but I wanted to award her for excellent service great humour and so obliging. She is a very valued member of your front of house staff. However all of your team made 10 months of laying on my back in hospital having 6 operations well worth the wait for a great traditional English fresh meal. Love u guys and we will be back very soon. From Darren and...

I'm disappointed with this Toby Carvery. The waitress who sat us down placed us between two tables with young children, one was crying, the other was screaming, and one of the parents was smacking his lips to point you could here it across the restaurant. We asked to be sat at another area and the waitress said she only had this table and another one closer to the screaming child, despite the restaurant being close to empty. The table we were sat at had food all over the floor meaning we could not put our bags down, so my wife asked for a broom to sweep up with. Luckily the waitress took the initiative and kindly swept up all of the food on the floor for us but at this point we still hadn't sat down and she asked us what we would like to drink. We politely stated we hadn't looked at the menu yet. After we sat down, we saw the same waitress seat a couple down where we requested to sit, so our table wasn't actually the only table available. The cutlery we were given was not clean and we went to get others from another table which were also not clean. Service from this particular waitress was terrible and i wish we had walked out. But the roasties were calling.

Other than that, the different waitress who served us was nice and the food was good which save this review from a...