The Pheasant — Restaurant in England

After a few years since lock down we finally managed to get back to the Pheasant.

And, oh how disappointing it was.

In days past, alot of days, I used to run the Original Carvery at the Cumberland Hotel in London. To give you an idea of how busy we were, the restaurant seated a maximum of 100 customers, and we regularly served 500 customers in an evening, so my comments come a point of view with masses of knowledge and experience.

So, we arrived at 1pm anticipating a lovely lunch as my treat from my wife.

The greeting was pleasant enough, but considering the place was about 1/3rd full I found it strange that, I assume was the manager, had to refer to the computer to get us a quiet table.

So we sat down, and waited and waited and waited for someone to take our drinks order.

The Mrs is vegetarian, so her nut roast had to be pre ordered before we went to the Carvery to get our meal. Absolutely no problem here.

Less than 5 minutes later, a different young lad came to our table saying that we should go up to the Carvery, with our little plastic tokens to get our meal.

Great, we thought, we were both hungry, and I especially was really looking forward to eating the excellent food I remembered from our previous visits.

We queued happily but the line wasn't very long as, as I've already said, the restaurant wasn't very busy.

Our turn came, and my wife presented her token for her nut roast. The chef, who wasnt in chefs whites this visit, asked if she had ordered the nut roast. Obviously we said yes, but her meal hadn't been ordered or warmed up yet. He was very apologetic and advised her to get her vegetables, and he'll get someone to bring her nut roast to our table.

Me being the greedy guts, had the large plate. Plenty of meat, but only beef or gammon to choose from, as when we there before.

Plates full, we went back to our table, and this is where things started to go downhill.

The meat was utterly tasteless. The beef was seriously overcooked, and i think being kept hot in a steamer.

The brocolli and cauliflower cheese was seriously overcooked, and the cauliflower cheese lacked any actual cheese.

At no stage did anyone approach us to check if we were enjoying our meal.

I needed to go to the toilet, and in the meantime my wife asked for the bill.

Now, according to the menu, the carvery is charged at £13.00 per person, Monday to Friday, so we were a bit curious her nut roast was charged at £14.00. I know that it's only a £1 difference, but in these strange times, every penny counts.

We called the manager over and she agreed that the menu should show the price for ALL the meal variants. She, however, insisted that the price was £14.00 and now became shirty about it.

We confirmed that we were only prepared to pay the Monday to Friday price.

Her words to this were "I will allow this concession this time, but the next time you come, you'll have to pay full price"

We have both come from the service industry and have a combined experience of over 75 years.

I found her rude and completly out of order over just £1.

We will NOT be returning, not just about her attitude but how poor the food has now become.

I have to reiterate that the Manager was absolutely out of order, rude and arrogant. How was she not to know that i was the new CEO, checking out some of the...

Unfortunately all nice places in the area were closed for food until 6.30 and we ended up here for late lunch, after long day of walking. First tried to order Old Fashioned cocktail to which waitress responded "is that on the menu?" - she should know, after showing her the menu she had to go and check if they have ingredients, they didn't. Then tried to order grilled chicken meal, to which the waitress said she "thinks they don't have chicken breast" and proceeded to stand there. I would assume if "she thinks" she wpuld go to the kitchen to check for sure, but no. I ordered shandy, which was very lemonade heavy, so I asked waitress to top it up a little with beer. She said no, great customer service. Then tried to explain to me what shandy is and what beer top is and maybe next time I should order beer top. I had to stop her and say i know what i ordered which doesn't change the fact that shandy tastes like lemonade with beer top. She then said beer is what costs more in the shandy and she will not top it up, I had to point out you're charging for full pint anyway for shandy - she said no, shandy is cheaper, you are not charging for full pint. I said okay, waited until the bill and surprise , surprise I have been charged for full pint for shandy and I have been refused extra 100ml of beer top up. I have also been charged for one extra beer we did not have . Manager rectified this after talking to her and manager was very lovely. Food is level of weatherspoons so nothing special. Overall I dont mind paying for nice food, but this was definetly not worth it and the behaviour we endured was awful.

There is mc donalds down the road, do yourself a favour...

When we got there the staff were so good, they'd already got 5 stars from me. We arrived and our toddler was asleep. They gave us a table with a padded bench specifically so she could nap on it, which meant rearranging booked tables for us (she didn't nap; she woke up and was a pain in the bum).

Our orders were taken quickly, our drinks arrived in next to no time. Our food also came pretty quickly. I had the Henry burger, it was amazing. I would come back again JUST for that burger. The lad that brought our drinks over and the lady who was serving us, both were so friendly and just NICE.

My daughter had the macaroni cheese and seemed to be enjoying it. Unfortunately it turns out she seems to have caught the stomach bug going around her nursery... So, still sitting at our table, she puked into her meal. I waved our server over, I wish I'd asked her name because she was so lovely. She helped clean my daughter up and was so kind to her.

I insisted on disposing of the plate of puke myself, I couldn't let someone who was just working there deal with it. So they cleared it with Amanda, the manager, for me to do that. Amanda was so good, she was very reassuring and said she knows what it's like.

I apologised to everyone.

But no one was cross. No one made us feel small. No one so much as tutted. Every single person was like "That's okay, don't worry."

I wish I could give them more than 5 stars! And you bet we'll be back again, if...