The Farmhouse Beefeater — Restaurant in England

Wish I could give individual reviews, because it was only the food that let down our experience, the front of house staff were great and very friendly, great to see Kelly the Manager getting stuck in doing coffees and collecting plates, and couldn't have asked for a better server in Brad.

The couple of mistakes with the food is what has reduced my score from a 5/5 experience. I ordered everything bar the Quorn sausage, and my better half had bacon, sausage, hash brown, tomato and poached eggs. This took maybe 30 minutes to bring out, which was no big deal as you can get toast, coffee etc. When it did arrive, The egg white was still watery/raw near the edges, to the point where it dribbled through the fork. The sausages, which are only as long but a bit fatter than your thumb, had the texture of warmed sausage meat, rather than a solid banger, and turned to mush when trying to cut them in half. The last thing wrong with the meal, is that we asked for the bubble and squeak too, but this was missing from both our plates. Everything else, was top notch, the hash browns tasked amazing and I wished I'd asked for triple amount of the two that I had. The bacon was great, mushrooms, black pudding, beans and half slice of tomato, all yum.

The manager came round a few minutes after receiving our breakfast, but being British, of course didn't say there was anything wrong with most of the meal, because well, we're British, but on this occasion my missus did bring up the issue with the sausage, to which the manager agreed, and said that she would ask the kitchen to try and cook a fresh batch and get them cooked a bit more than before. Huzzah! Few minutes later, the manager comes back with 2 sausages which look exactly like the last one I was digging into on my plate, to which she explained that they are on a timer and they can't get any more colour on them, we said thanks and that was that.

My missus didn't eat the watery egg, but we did eat the sausages, as we had reassurance from the manager that everything is planned and timed in the kitchen to allow for optimal cooking. Later when I got home, 10 minutes at the porcelain palace says that she has obviously not had the sausage in a while...

On balance, we were told that they usually only have a chef and a waiter on most weekends, but this had been an exceptionally busy Saturday morning due to the first day of kids summer holidays, breakfast is from 0700 til 1100 on weekends, and we had arrived at around 0915, it was still more than half full at that time, so need to consider that before simply saying "the food is always under par", because I believe on other days the food could be amazing, and for the low £9.50 price I'd be hard pressed to find quality like it in the same price range.

I will definitely give this place a second chance, like a said at the start, it's the A+ service which has convinced me that this place could be great, just maybe don't go if you know...

Christmas Dinner 2019

The two star rating is only for the sake of the serving staff who looked after us on Christmas day, they were absolutely lovely and I feel bad for them having to serve the utter swill that was being dished out as "Christmas Dinner." obviously complaints are going to go through them first and I can imagine they had a truly awful day with an abundance of complaints.

On arrival, my wife and I were seated at a rickety table that rocked and shook with every slight movement. Given that we had 2 small children, we had to stand our drinks on the floor to stop them from spilling everywhere and falling over.

I excused myself from the table to go to the ladies bathroom. The bathroom consisted of 2 toilets - one of which was out of order and the remaining one had a broken lock so could not be secured. Every soap dispenser in there was also empty.

The starters came to our table, my wife had what was described as a beef filled Yorkshire pudding with horseradish sauce. Given that anywhere else we've been ever has always had the sauce separate to the dish so as the person eating the dish can choose if or how much sauce they would like on their food - we were surprised when this came out smothered in the stuff, my partner couldn't eat it. I had the baked bree souflee which was okay if not very warm but the rocket salad garnish had obviously been sat under the heat lamp for some time as it was completely stuck to the plate. My daughter had pigs in blankets with cranberry sauce. The pigs in blankets had barely seen the grill, they looked like anaemic fingers with a plaster round them, needless to say my daughter wouldn't eat them.

The main meal arrived. It consisted of frozen mixed green vegetables, sweet potato mash that had the consistency of baby food, frozen roast potatoes which had been deep fried as well as the parsnips, a burnt Yorkshire pudding filled with burnt Stuffing and about a thimble full of gravy thrown on and some sliced turkey. No gravy boat was offered either. It was awful. We didn't eat it, I put the turkey from all four plates in a freezer bag and brought it back for my dogs - who wouldn't eat it either.

The desserts were average really, presentation wasn't the best but it raised the least complaints.

We didn't stay for the free coffee, we wanted to get out of there and get home. This meal cost us £130. It definitely wasn't worth it.

I didn't want to complain to the serving staff as I'd already overheard several complaints and their poor souls just looked defeated. Plus it was Christmas day, we had the kids with us and could've really done without the stress.

Generally the food here is pretty good, but I expected a lot better for Christmas day. I don't know what happened and who was in charge of that kitchen - but they're rubbish and...

After not visiting here for a couple of years, I was very surprised by how much The Farmhouse has changed and was left disappointed. Visited with my Daughter and 2 Grandchildren for an evening meal. We all ordered starters and a main meal and one of my grandchildren opted for the 3 course childrens option. The adult starters arrived, but the child nacho starter did not arrive, we asked where it was and it was then bought to the table, it was a handful of nacho crisps, a small pot of chopped red peppers and another little pot of sour cream. The menu states “nachos with chopped cucumber and tomatoes, with sour cream and yoghurt dip, so wasn’t what was expected. A waitress came and asked us if the starters had been alright and we said that everything was fine, apart from the nachos, which were pretty rubbish and that we would not be paying for them. She apologised and then our main meals arrived - 2 fish and chips, 1 chicken Goujon and a child’s portion of popcorn chicken with fries. We were asked if we would like any sauces and we asked for salt and vinegar and some mayonnaise. No vinegar was bought to us, so we asked for it and again it never came. The third time we asked it was promptly bought over, by the only member of staff that seemed to have any manners or any idea how to treat customers (we thought she must of been the manager). The fries that were given to my grandson were cold and hard. All the other food was edible, but over priced and not of the standard we have always received previously at Beefeater. When the waitress asked us how the mains had been, we informed her that the fries were cold and hard, she became very stroppy and replied “we do ask if everything is ok, and if you had said it wasn’t, I would of exchanged it for you”, and she then walked off. The only friendly member of staff, again arrived at our table, and apologised again about the meals served to us and agreed that they shouldn’t of been served to us as they were, and also informed us that she had deducted the price of the meal from our bill. This lady is the only good thing about the Farmhouse Beefeater. We will definitely not be returning here, as there are plenty of other pubs/restaurants in the area that serve better quality food at a more reasonable price, and have staff that obviously know how to give good...