The Raby Arms - Village Pub and Kitchen — Restaurant in England

Is not what it used to be!! Heard poor reviews about the Raby lately and having been twice the in the past week I can see how. The food has always been hit & miss, also the menu is little bit to pricey for what it is.

Had a Sunday dinner in there and it was like they did not want to serve you. Asked for some mint sauce for the table and got given a tiny little pot, when we asked for more the lad who looks like he must be a manger, wear's a shirt, tall slim build, just give us the impression that he couldn't be bothered. Took far too long to get someone's attention when our food was on the table.

Thought we'd try again during the week. When the meals came out one of the dishes was wrong so we had to wait 10 minutes for the correct dish, not great for someone to sit there whist the rest of the table is eating. Same thing happened again when we asked for some tomato ketchup, tiny little pot and they expected it to do 3 out of 6 of us, then when asked for more they took far too long, be nice to have sauce with our dinners not after it. One of the serving basket handles was covered in what looked like yellow grease, so clearly it had not been cleaned properly.

Choice of beer & cider on draught isn't great either now, they used to do Strongbow Dark Fruits then replaced it to Carling Dark Fruits which is popular with most people but now have changed it again. Replaced Kronenbourg with Moretti which are both good but now do Staropramen which isn't the best but you don't have much choice. Yes I get they want to try other products but I will never understand the reasoning to take something off that sells and it is popular. I understand products go up in price but people will pay for what they like to drink. We Should be able to keep coming back and be served what we enjoy drinking, hence the reason for wanting to return.

In all honesty the place has not been the same since Kate left a few years ago. She really knew how to look after the customers and keep the staff in check making sure they were doing their jobs properly. I appreciate that in the restaurant industry they will go through some staff but is it really hard to make sure they are trained correctly and can ask them to smile towards the customers every once in a while. The place has lost its personal touch towards their paying customers, especially...

Apologies for not leaving the review - was planning too, but completely slipped my mind.

The service at the pub was great which raised the stars for the otherwise poor food.

We had the Hummus, and the Corned Beef Hash to start. Hummus tasted of nothing. No Garlic, no Tahini, No flavour. This was meant to be accompanied by I think Focaccia bread?, which we both don't like, so had asked this to be swapped for some crusty bread, or a soup roll. What we got was soggy half-cooked bread. The Corned Beef Hash starter was basically pulled beef in brown sauce with roast potatoes. The server did explain this when we ordered, so the explanation of the starter can be forgiven. Everything was so exceptionally under-seasoned that it just didn't taste of anything. When you did manage to get something, it was just an acidic vinegar type taste, presumably from the brown sauce.

We didn't say anything about the starters as the pub was very busy, and we understand that sometimes these things happen. We decided to have our mains and then leave.

Mains arrived - I had ordered the Lasagne, my partner ordered the Chicken. Her bowl was swimming in water from under-drained veg. There wasn't an ounce of seasoning anywhere at all. Everything was completely bland - and unpalatable. The Lasagne was even worse. The salad was drowning in bland dressing, the coleslaw wasn't bad, but again - bland. The lasagne was disgusting. Rarely leave anything and complain, but had to in this case.

We hate complaining. We hate confrontation and with it being busy we didn't see the point in waiting around to confront the manager about the whole meal being sub standard, and put it down to the kitchen being very busy, and maybe just being an off day. We asked for the lasagne to be refunded as it was barely touched unlike the other courses we had eaten more of. There was no real comment from the manager when she was asked to remove this from the bill by the staff. I think she was resigned to the fact that it was busy too. We weren't asked about the rest of the meal, she seemed happy to do as we'd asked and refunded the lasagne which was a nice gesture.

The pub is very nice though, and the staff were friendly and service was good. We'd certainly come back to drink, but certainly wouldn't eat there unless there were changes in...

Went on a Sunday about 4pm.

Atmosphere was great, very busy outside due to the weather been nice which didn't effect the service at all.

Good sized play area outside for children maybe over the age of 5 / 6. Alternatively, children younger would need constant adult supervision / help getting around.

Food - Was good, as you can see in the photo we got 3 small plates + Pizza. The salt & pepper Chicken was very salty which did hinder the rest of the small and made you drink more due to the salt which then filled you up quicker. The pizza was tasty (hot shot) but I could tell it had been waiting on the side a little while due to it been hot, it was warm enough to eat but I had to eat it first, then unfortunately went cold once we were half way through. The other two plates we got was Homemade Natchos which were lovely, not The Raby Arms fault, as any place this happens but slightly soggy on the bottom but Natchos were very tasty with the given dips. The next plate we got was Loaded Beef Brisket Fries... these were gorgeous with cheese loaded on top. Very tasty and beef wasn't too fatty like I've had in other places. Again, not the Rabys fault but chips at the bottom went wet / soggy due to beef juices so unable to fully finish. The deserts: Sticky toffee pudding + Triple Choc Brownie. The pudding did originally come with Custard but when we asked for it to be changed to Ice cream, they were happy to do this (as well as adding an extra scoop at our request) The chocolate brownie was very tasty and moist inside, my only negative with it was it came with chocolate ice cream which made it too sickly as it was a triple chocolate brownie. If I was to go back, I would request for vanilla rather than chocolate with the desert. Ice cream was nice.

They gave us boxes to take the pizza home with.

In total with 2 beers and 1 Pepsi it came to £58 for two people on a Sunday.

Overall I would return, but would bare the above in mind. Like I mentioned we attended on a Sunday so the menu was limited but I would definitely like to return mid week to their full menu to check it out.

As always, my reviews are genuine, fair and...