Oven Restaurant — Restaurant in England

So this is not something that I usually do. But here goes.

My fiancee and I thought let's treat ourselves to a lovely dinner in and wind down for the week... Oh how wrong we were.

When we looked through the menu everything looked amazing and we really struggled to make our choice of what to eat. Nonetheless we had decided on the below! The call was made to make the order at 17:56 (exact details). Once the order had been placed we were advised over the phone that our food would be ready between 20:10 & 20:20. So like every other half staving Brit we arrived 20:10 hoping for the earlier time.

Our food finally came out of the restaurant to the car at 20:57. We were advised the ticket had 20:20 on it which meant little. Had the meal arrived at 20:20 there would have been no review here but the mixture of very late food very cheap ingredients and a total let down from the menu description I feel it is only fair for everyone to have an honest review.

Now the negative and positive list:

Starters: 1 x Deep fried tempura tiger praws with garlic and chilli mayo - We were given 3 prawns and they were honestly about the size of the extra small prawns you buy from a supermarket and the batter was extremely soggy

Mains: 1 x Posh fish and chips, served with mushy peas and homemade tartar sauce - the batter on the fish was very good. How ever the rest of the dish was a complete waste. Over cooked fish, soggy chips and garden peas that had clearly been microwave cooked as the water used to cook them was still there.

1 x Spicy chorizo parmo, breaded chicken breast topped with bechamel sauce and cheese with a layer of spicy chorizo in the mix. Served with salad and chips - the breaded chicken breast was gorgeous! Unfortunately the remaining components of this dish were all shop bought and not restaurant quality shop bought. The bechamel was bland. The "spicy" chorizo was sandwich slices and the cheese was the plastic cheese that you buy when you know you may never use it again. Accompanied by soggy chips.

Desert: 1 x Honeycomb cheese cake - This left us with a large sense of did I pay for that tiny child size portion?!

The worst part in this all was the poor level of customer service. When a meal is 47 minutes or even 37 minutes late. As a customer you can easily expect a discount or free drinks... But no we were sent on our way.

Definitely would...

we bought a 'come dine with me' coupon for £20 to spend at Oven (£40 to spend on the night) we rang & booked to go 7pm on the 7/7/12...we were told we'd have to be finished by 9pm for the next cusomers which we were happy about! On arrival....we werent booked in! but we were given a table & told we'd probably have to move half way through our meal....the male waiter with a foreign accent, was rude, abrupt and unhelpful. I informed him of my dairy intolorance and asked what food was available which was safe for me to eat...he wasnt remotely interested in helping! I chose a starter & main myself and he said it would be ok....the black pudding starter came on a bed of mash (obvious to me it wash mashed with butter!!)...the waitress was more helpful and informed the chef and the rest of the meal ran smoothly and she was pleasant & helpful and checked my meal was dairy free throughout, including finding me a pudding which wasnt fruit (which is rare!)..however at 8pm the foreign man (he doesnt deserve the title gentleman!) started moving couples for a large party arriving (including us)...by this point we were drinking coffee & nearly finished - paying the bill didnt even run smoothly, with staff not knowing where the bill was....my son & his girlfriend also went the previous week and said they felt like second class citizens, but enjoyed the food!! Totally unimpressed and wont be going back!! Suggest sacking the...

After wondering around Darlington, looking for somewhere to eat, I came across this place.

I was going to order a chicken parmo, but after looking at their facebook page, I realised this was not there speciality abd they didn't look great, so instead, I ordered a southern fried chicken burger.

The burger came with chips and one onion ring, the first bite the burger tasted okay the burger sauce tasted a bit like big msc sauce from mcdonalds, but the more I ate I realised half of the burger was inedible. It was too tough. The chicken was like a brick.

I mentioned this, and she offered to replace it for a different meal, which I politely declined, so she comped it off instead.

The chips were average, and the onion ring was made using fresh onion.

My partner ordered red wine rosemary steak, which she said was average, not amazing, and the mash was definitely store bought.

The table next tk us also complained as we left.

Would not...