Albion — Restaurant in England

The drinks were OK but the food bloody disgusting waited 1 & 1/2 hours for food and it was cold, stale bread they had ran out of butter the cod looked like road kill, one of our meals had no bacon on the chicken and bacon salad, the curry sauce was thick with skin on it, the grated cheese had melted in the pot where it had been sat under the lights to be brought out the whole meal was diabolical absolutely disgusting. We complained to one of the servers who explained that the normal chef was on holiday and that green king made them keep the kitchen running. The replacement chef was in fact NOT a fully trained chef it was a woman (the mangeress) doing the cooking she came out of the kitchen a few times NOT even in a chefs uniform normal clothes and she looked an absolute mess. On complaining the server also told us that they won't dispute our concerns as they know the food at the moment is not good and explained everything that as customers we should NOT have been told we did get a refund we came home hungry after looking forward to a decent meal and due to the way our day had gone we had not eaten all day as it was. We really should be offered a free meal for the 3 of us as compensation for the utterly disgusting food that we were served this evening if your chefs not in close the bloody kitchen don't put someone in there with no skills and certainly no hygiene skills. Our meals were.... Signature code and chips with scampi peas and bread the bread was stale, the fish was like road kill and greasy as he'll the chips were hard and dry as were the peas, there was no butter but they offered margarine!!!???? The burger meal the burgers were like shoe leather the chicken breast too dry to eat and cold chips The chicken and bacon salad with jacket potato no bacon on salad chicken over cooked jacket potatoes dry and unedible no butter margarine was offered again!???...

Food and drink quality has really gone downhill in the last year or so.

When we first came about 18 months ago the Sunday roast was brilliant. Fresh veg, proper roast potatoes and even dessert thrown in. The place was heaving and rightly so.

Came back today to find the place empty. Ordered two roasts and they were possibly the sadest ones we've ever eaten.

Firstly the price has remained the same (or gone up slightly, im not sure), but dessert is no longer included. Fair enough, I can understand the need to cut costs and so assumed the roast would be just as good as before. I was wrong.

Beef (advertised as cooked pink) was fatty and cremated. Roast potatoes were almost certainly the type that come from a bag of frozen ones, veg was just overcooked peas and carrots, the Yorkshire was a just a soggy little thing that looked and tasted like it had been microwaved, and the stuffing was just a burnt disc about 3cm wide.

What happened? We used to rave about the Sunday roasts this place did but it was comparable to the microwavable roasts for one you can get from the supermarket.

It's not just the roasts either, the last few meals we've had have gradually gone down in quality.

To make matters worse the last few times I've ordered a beer here it's always been flat.

Staff are generally nice but sadly we won't be returning any time soon. Its a shame because...

It's not unusual to have to punch in a car reg nowadays in pub car parks that are subjected to commuter abuse but in my humble opinion pubs with monitored parking like this does mean a certain kind of clientèle are likely to be present. The pub advertises itself as a sports venue and it certainly does what it says on the tin - we watched one family hooverer up a lunch with their post-football youngsters in tow only for them to be replaced by another muddy boot clad group of teens who couldn't take their eyes off the angry Midland Derby steaming live into the lounge. Whilst the hooligans on the pitch did battle with the secretly secreted Wolves fans the adults in the room blinked unresponsively into their social media feeds. I am a sports fan (I'm ticketed up for Wales v Scotland in Cardiff tomorrow) and as you can read from my reviews I love a good pub but just occasionally whilst both are present they can fail to gel. Our lunch was good, the service better actually (I liked the friendly barman's banter and his diamond attitude) so whilst there's nowt wrong with the Albion I don't know why I feel it felt like I was sailing in a rudderless ship. Perhaps it just lacked a bit of warmth 🤔 or perhaps I've just forgotten how the clammer of dragging your nippers out on cold Sunday morning for the whole of your thirties...