The Blue Boar — Restaurant in East Suffolk

First time here so a review is needed, like everywhere else I go.

This was for a friends 50th birthday meal out.

I can start by saying the waitress was really nice and had to run back and forth loads. Because of the design of the building.

I can't really comment much on the atmosphere as our party was in a back room and by ourselves. But it seemed nice, as you walked through to the toilets.

Which brings me to the cleanliness of the toilets. It was clean and tidy. The style of the pub was quaint as an old style building.

We had a party of 11 of which 2 turned up very late. Our starters were OK apart from my wifes Indian platter, which seemed very well done and she said they tasted mushy. Also she couldn't tell the difference between the onion bhajis and vegetable pakoras. My friend I had the deep fried brie I believe, which looked amazing. The rest was ok, I didn't have a starter myself but pinched a bit of other people's.

The mains were a little disappointing, one had a steak which was meant to be medium rare but definitely medium well done. Another had a chilli burger where the burger was crispy on the edges and dry, with very little chilli inside. My wife wasn't impressed with her katsu curry, but I thought the sauce was nice and spicy. Two had ribs which were nice, but dry ribs not saucy ribs The steak pudding looked good and I wondered if it was fresh homemade as quite impressed. The meat feast pizza looked nice and you could see the meat. But the pepperoni pizza I had was like a plain cheese pizza. I actually pulled the cheese off to see if there was any pepperoni in it, there was a few bits but you couldn't taste it. I was offered an alternative but once you have something a bit iffy you don't want anything else. I was still charged for it so I hope the kitchen staff enjoyed my pizza better than me at my cost. My friend had the same pizza and agreed but ate some of hers and asked for a doggy bag to take home, literally for her dog. I sent mine back and still got charged for it.

The deserts were nice particularly the sticky toffee sponge pudding and the cheesecake

My overall score is 2.7 and I wouldn't go out of my way...

Trying to give a constructive review here and not just a disgruntled whinge. Hopefully gets back to the right management team to investigate and improve

Visited with a large group on a Friday evening around 6:30pm. There was also a large group in the function room so understandably all staff were very busy which impacted our experience also as it took a lot of the staff away from the main restaurant. So I guess not a normal experience on this occasion for everyone so I appreciate this may be a one off and not common. Staff were quite direct, on places quite manic. Three times wrong items were brought to our table and staff seemed confused We had to go to the bar to order drinks as waited too long to order though meal along with two other tables trying to order drinks too. The duty manager was obviously very busy organising function with pre orders but did little to read the room and waiting customers, no apology or acknowledgement of wait times Toilets were mostly out of order (both sets) but not explained to guests so we had to find out ourselves where to go as a back up option. Explaining this at the start of our meal would have been very helpful. Only one toilet between the restraint and function room for ladies made for some queues. The food quality was disappointing. Very much likened to chain restaurant pre ordered catering style food brought in. Very much food you could have done at home. I had the ribs which were very disappointing, there were obviously microwaved and had the watery runny sauce swimming on my plate and not glazed at all. Not worth the £17 (I think) for a micro meal and chips. Pies looked brought in from a factory but these were described as nice but other guests so I can’t say all items were bad they liked them.

All in all there is great potential with a bit more efficiency and quality of food upped. The decor is nice and...

I went here last weekend with my partner for a meal and unfortunately we were disappointed. We waited 5 minutes to be 'sat' to our table, only to be told by a young girl that 'your table is just through there on the right behind the door; the table of two'. We were told where to sit, and had to go find it for ourselves, no menus were given to us at all. Once we found our table, an older lady came over to us and asked if we had checked in, of which I confirmed to her and then she gave us some menus. Our orders were taken (we both had a starter and main course) and food didn't take long to come out. As we were eating our meals, the young girl who told us where to sit, came through with menus in her hand, showing other guests to their tables. We were rather annoyed, but the difference was that those guests were in their 40's-50's, and we are in our early 20's! Is it because we're young that we're not shown to our table? We finished our starters and the young girl took our plate away, saying 'have you finished?', not asking how our food was. As soon as she took our starters away, our mains were literally put down straight away, by an older waitress. Not once were we asked during our meal, how our food was. Once we had finished, the young girl came over and said 'are you done? Do you want the dessert menu?', again not asking how our meals were. By this point, we were very frustrated and we just asked for the bill. I've been to the blue boar a few times with family, and have not had a bad service. Is it because we're young that we're treated differently? The food was nice, but it's the service that let it down, hence for the rating. Unfortunately, it'll be a while...