The Crab and Lobster Inn — Restaurant in England

High expectations shattered. Mixed reviews were taken with a pinch of salt given how tough staffing has been of late. We arrived just after 11 and picked a quiet outdoor table. The grass near the dining area was freshly strimmed as we had to wipe all the overspray from our table and chairs. We settled into our seats to enjoy the sea views which were partially masked by the the full bramble hedge. The freshly strimmed grass was littered with rubbish. There were four serving staff just standing around as food service wasn't for another hour. 5 minutes would have tidied the garden. Ordered about noon and certainly one of the first if the perhaps 1/5 full garden. Wanted to order the cold sea food platter but some reviews suggested it was a bit small. The lady at the bar suggested it would probably need some side orders of chips, so we plumped for the £79 hot seafood platter. First choice bottle of wine unavailable, luckily had an alternative chosen... also unavailable. Asked for a recommendation and was offered something completely different. Decided to ask what did they have and settled if a 3rd choice. Food arrived in reasonable time but we soon realised our table was too small for the serving platter, sides, plates, drinks and finger bowl. The waitress however said just give me some room on the front corner and left us to juggle the table Ok so nothing to bad so far but things are mounting up. The seafood platter.... Squid cold, rubbery, slimy and flavourless couldn't even cut it. It's about a 6th of the meal. Lobster, tepid and rubbery. Green lipped muscles the same. We tried the squid first and immediately pointed it out to the waiter. He offered to take the whole platter away but we said the prawns are good and we'd rather try and continue so just replace the squid. We hadn't tried the lobster or green lipped muscles yet! After about 10 minutes he returned and said the chef was new and he'd tried the squid 4 times, how was it? It was warm, slimy and rubbery so he said he would give us a discount at the end. In fairness the large prawns were great as was the chilli ginger muscles. We decided to cut our losses as the meal had seriously lost its wow factor to say the least. Our discount... £5, on a meal that cost £110 and was really poor. I would have been dissapointed at less than half that price. They weren't busy, had plenty of staff just have a quality far below what we paid for 2 people. Should have realised the lack of attention to detail in the garden was echoed by the quality of food. Another couple had the cold platter and were dissapointed by it's size and left quickly. Overhead others bemoaning the portion sizes. The hot platter was a reasonable size but seriously...

I know that the hospitality industry needs all the support it can get, which is why I've given this 3 stars instead of 2. I'll try to explain why, in MY experience, it doesn't deserve more on this occasion only.

We were delighted to have got a booking because I'd read brilliant reviews. We chose to sit outside, at one of the many empty tables at 7pm, with a stunning view of the sea.

The young lass that greeted us was pleasant, but very clearly exhausted, as she stumbled to string two sentences together through her fatigue. This is entirely understandable in the current climate.

Once at our table, we waited 35 minutes before I approached staff to request a menu and took a couple back to the table.

Approximately 30 minutes later, the tables had filled up and everyone except us had drinks. We'd clearly been forgotten. The people at the next table got their second round of drinks before we had our first and they'd arrived after us - they called for us to be served. I didn't want to hassle anyone, but we were thirsty (it was hot) and hungry, so I asked if someone could take our order. Just a few minutes later, our order was taken by someone else.

It wasn't long before our meals came, but we still didn't have any drinks! Or cutlery to eat it with! We only waited a minute or two for cutlery, then tucked in.

Honestly, we were both underwhelmed.

Starters: asparagus - it was a decent sized meal, nothing amazing, a bit limp, but it was food and my other half ate the lot.

Starters: mussels - made with garlic butter (I was informed) - tasted okay. The white bread was nice. I didn't use the butter pats, but saved one for my main meal.

Mains: pie, boiled potatoes and vegetables - the pie looked good, but the very limp cabbage leaves were disappointing. I'd expected better.

Mains: crab - this was served with a small side salad and some boiled potatoes. Thankfully, I'd saved some butter for the potatoes! The crab was good and tasty. The apparently prepackaged sweating salad was past its best. The boiled potatoes were good.

For starters and mains, we were served our meals and had to wait a short while for cutlery.

Over £50 for two meals with one soft drink each. Not a bad price, but the meals were underwhelming in size and quality and the service was lacking.

Maybe it will be better once all the staff are used to working at a high pace again. After all, they've all had a really rough time of it for the past year. The person serving our mains said he was the person serving drinks, meals and tidying tables. The young lady we saw on arrival.had long disappeared.

My...

We had big expectations as our family is a huge fun of seafood. We booked for 2:30, the earliest time given via website. Upon arrival we were greeted with surprise as they had not checked the booking on the website, well they were busy so that’s fine, no problem. We were than seated by a very nice and polite member of staff. We wanted to go for the seafood platter and the pork filet for my son. We had wine suggestion too but as my wife loves red or maximum rose, I changed mind with the suggestion and opted rose so we could share it . The gentleman cam back after few minutes and unfortunately told us that the lobster was not available, this was a huge disappointment but we were told that we could het extra scampi, mussels …ok well, let’s trust , I’m sure it will be still good. I had asked a small salad as I always like to have as starter but we were not told that sea food comes with salad, so when the seafood platter came besides having the salad that I could have been avoided, the seafood platter was a huge disappointment, calamari were not as per previous pictures, seamed to us frozen , mussels were not really appealing, scampi had also expecting fresh with the whole shell, crab as per menu description was not in the shell and we could test and see only dark meat with way too much bread crumbs, clams were ok with the sauce very tasty, anyway the whole platters had for us no soul as we have seen many other pictures in the same restaurant we were really disappointed, by the way the pork filet was dry and over cooked with the oven baked potatoes and caramelised apple but no sauce and no much seasoning. My wife is also a huge fun of dessert but with this experience we honesty felt that we wanted just to leave as soon as possible, we downloaded the application character inn loyalty although the application was not working but the gentleman was kind to give still us the 30% discount, so very kind and we thank you very much also for your kindness but as lunch experiences was a...