The Embankment — Restaurant in England

The embankment Hotel is situated in a beautiful part of Bedford overlooking the River and Park and looks very inviting. However me and my lady didn't have a great experience after booking a table for an early birthday dinner.😡👎the staff were welcoming no problems with the staff, yet 😤.... firstly we went to the bar and waited quite a while to be served eventually bought a round of drinks but were discouraged from using cash to pay they were quite insistent on paying by card the reason for this will become clearer near the end of my true and honest review. We were taken to a table for two and told staff will be over shortly to take our order. On first glance the table didn't look very clean and was quite sticky to touch 👎so resting your arms across the table to hold hands wasn't possible. We ordered a bottle of red wine and some water which came very fast the water was nice and cold and the glasses were clean. The red wine was poured for us and was very nice indeed. When our waiter came over he was very pleasant and knew it was my birthday I didn't like him asking us what gifts I'd received. The hotel were informed that our visit was for a birthday treat as they had asked the reason we were visiting on the day of booking there was no actual reason for them knowing as they didn't give us a complimentary drink it seemed absolutely pointless in them knowing. ☹️ so the waiter then presented us with a specials chalk board with the daily menu which looked amazing we questioned him on what each item was as it was written in French and we were quite taken aback at his lack of knowledge as to the menu items we had to correct him on one item telling him it was chicken.... 🥺😳 we both liked the sound of the chicken dish and said we would like two of these only to be told at early doors that they'd sold out. 😡 disappointed we tried to order another item and this was also sold out. We then proceeded to look at the table menu and asked if we could have the steak and ale pie only to be told there will be a long wait on this dish and would we like to order a starter to nibble on😡 we ordered olives and garlic bread as we felt compelled to do so, the olives were nice not very impressed with the garlic bread tho. We then waited and waited and after an hour and a half our meals finaly arrived, on booking we were also told we must vacate the table after an hour and forty five minutes which made no sense as we waited this long to be served our substandard meal ☹️ On first glance I could tell the pie had been over cooked and the overall look wasn't inviting. The cabbage was hard to chew and swallow the pastry on the pie was salty and very hard to cut into there was allot of salt used in the pie and in the mash potatoes. Our plates were not hot and the food wasn't very warm like it had been left and forgotten about I didn't finish my meal as it wasn't very appetising. We had our table cleared and we're asked if we wanted desert but to be honest we just wanted out. Both of us very disappointed in our experience we just wanted to go home.. eventually we decided to make our way to the bar and pay. We offered to pay in cash but they didn't want cash as when you pay by card you are basically forced to pay a tip not even given the opportunity to decline. 😡😡😡 so we paid and left. 🤢🤢🤢🥶

I had to use the gents toilets during our evening and was confronted with a very smelly and quite unventilated room there was toilet paper on the floors and the room felt very dirty this realy puts me off when visiting a restaurant. 🤢🤢🤢 So overall I'll give this place a thumbs down 👎would I visit again I'd say a resounding NO. In my opinion the establishment needs a full deep clean and or decorate plus the management needs to sit down and talk about how to best improve the customer experience. In my very humble opinion 👎👎👎🐕‍🦺🦝 in hindsight we should have just paid for our drinks and left when the menu was found not to be of any use. I hope my review finds you in good faith this is a true and accurate review of our visit....

Bedford River Festival 2018 - didn't disappoint but gets more crowded each year making it difficult (with disabilities) for me to see the stalls, shows & music I was interested in. This is a bi-annual, multicultural festival cram packed with stalls for art & crafts, wooden carvings, models & sculptures, local art & crafts, kiddies fairground, adult fairgrounds, food stalls, bars & Pimm's tents, several performance stages for music, dance & theatre, Bratwurst, Italian, Crepes, Donuts, Fudge & confectionary, pastries & cakes, alternative & festival clothing, ice cream, gold & silver jewellery, soaps & bath bombs etc, pick'n'mix, tea & coffee servers, Air Cadets, CRUK, Police, Army, RSPCA, Dogs Trust, Alternative Therapies & much more than I can list here. There are numerous toilet & hand wash facilities. Not many places to sit in chairs, few marquees to get out of the sun (or rain). Many had come prepared & created a family 'pitch' under a tree near the river where there was some breeze. I think we will pitch up early in 2020 so we have a base, shade & a nice view. I enjoyed it but it is not geared for the less mobile in wheelchairs or using disability scooters. Unfortunately people with dogs, pushchairs, bikes etc become a hazard that many were either crashed into (especially by prams & buggies not paying attention to people in front of them), tripped up by dogs or shopping trolleys & clipped & injured by kids barging through dense crowds on their bikes. It's frustrating enough for fully able bodied people but increasingly dangerous for the disabled as the crowds build up by the minute.

There is plenty to do & a vast array of stalls selling & promoting goods & services. The 2 fairgrounds are a good size each & most rides were £3-£5 each person. Drinks & foods expensive but that's just part of the experience.

Long walks keeping to a restrictive 'one-way' pedestrian system & very few free seating or available park benches unless people could see I'm disabled & kindly gave up their seat.

Parking nearby is the field close to the Athletic Stadium or the multistorey carparks within the town. We chose to get buses instead & did not have to walk too far to buses or to wait for one to arrive both there & back. The queues for the 'Park & Ride' situated near Elstow was ridiculously long & buses infrequent. Frustrating on a very hot weekend & with small children. I wouldn't recommend taxis as streets were either closed off or traffic lights had been set up for traffic calming measures but just ended up annoying people further. A pedestrian crossing was temporarily set up on the Town Bridge which was not ideally situated.

I look forward to keeping up our family tradition & go again in 2020 but will go well prepared & set up camp...

Came here for a Christmas meal with work last night. The waitress was friendly and had a laugh while we played a few games. The starter came out and we were all very impressed. The vegetable board looked amazing. So did the soup and the fish cakes were divine. The night was off to a good start. A few people ordered a couple more drinks at this point, unfortunately none arrived and some people ended up having to ask for their drinks 5 or more times before they came. Main courses arrived, again looked stunning. The turkey looked like it had a decent potion, the lamb looked good on the plait, salmon looked amazong and the vegetable Wellington looked good too. They served the roast potatoes and veg seperate for us to dig into. We found that the sprouts were raw, you could t even stab them with your fork to begin cutting, the roast potatoes were good. Unfortunately the lamb was so overcooked it was disgusting, half of mine was burnt so much I couldn't cut it and it was so dry even with the gravy. The people who ordered salmon had no vegetables, no new potatoes nothing x it came as it was and looked like it had no sauce so was very dry. There was nothing to their dish at all. It was a big let down. More drinks were ordered and again took forever to come. Desert came and looked so good. Most of us had the chocolate brownie. One of the girls with us is gluten free and ordered a gluten free version. She was told that all brownies were gluten free but we were shocked to find a biscuit crumb under the ice cream and we weren't sure if that was gluten free or not as we weren't expecting it. My piece of brownie was very doughy and almost seemed raw, it wasn't cooked enough at all and was stone cold when I received it. It wasn't a very pleasant texture at all. One of the girls even found a hair right in the middle of her cheesecake within the first bite, not a small hair at that. Whom I believe was the manager did come to see her but her tone didn't seem very accommodating and she didn't seem very pleased to help.

I would definitely NOT recommend the embankment for any food or events suchbas a Christmas meal.

Wish I...