Waggon at Hale — Restaurant in England

Was looking forward to dining here as a friend had recommended it. I had looked at the menu on their website and we chose 2 meals from the 2 for £15 section. I was greeted by a friendly barmaid, and was told that the lasagna was no longer included in the deal; but she checked with the manager and he honoured the website deal! So it might be good to check by phone if there are any changes not reflected on-line! They said they would bring our drinks to our table and promptly forgot! Had to queue again to remind them! She did apologise later! My husband had the sausage and mash and thoroughly enjoyed it, unfortunately my lasagna was very disappointing! It was over cooked and chewy, the garlic bread was dry, the salad limp and the sweet potato fries a little over done! The place is nicely decorated but our table was a bit sticky! It was also very noisey!! We finished our drinks outside and you can see that they have made a great effort with the petting zoo and play equipment for the kids! There did seem that there was a lack luster feeling to the rest of the space ~ broken and dirty looking chairs, half dead potted plants, unsightly, dangerous looking wiring hanging out of a window, food on the tables, benches and floor and the music was a tad too loud! The kids seemed to be having a great time running around, squealing and shouting, so if it's a quiet drink out you want then this is probably not the place for you! When we left, I had difficulty getting out of the car park due to someone parking in the zoned off area!! Generally, this is a sweet pub with friendly staff that do their best to sort the mistakes! It was very busy, (so they must be doing something right!) so I feel that maybe an extra bar staff would help make things flow better. A good tidy and clean in the garden and a review of some of the dishes on offer would go a long way to deserving the "gastro" label they have given themselves! A place with great potential ~ just missing that " je...

Sunday breakfast at the Waggon at Hale was unexpectedly good. Sorry about the photo! I couldn't help myself and tucked into my food before I gave any thought to writing a review. Whoops!

Among other breakfast choices, there's a standard Waggon cooked breakfast for £8 and a larger version, the Ultimate, for £11. Both come with lashings of tea and coffee plus toast, all included in the price.

I chose the Ultimate and I'm surprised that I finished it. The Waggon includes sausages, bacon, 2 eggs, mushrooms, beans, grilled tomato and a couple of hash browns. The ultimate swaps the hash browns for 3 slices of black pudding and huge portion of bubble & squeak! It made for quite a pile! The bubble & squeak is clearly home made. Whilst it lacked the outer crispiness that I long for in a great, fried bubble, it was properly made with decent potatoes and greens. The sausages were decent and the bacon remained juicy. No shoe leather bacon on your cooked breakfast here, thank goodness. It's just a shame that the egg yolks weren't runny, but that's me finding criticism where there should perhaps be none.

Everyone agreed that the food was super, but the Ultimate was a little too big and that'll be a very rare comment from me! Accounting for portion size, quality and the price-included tea, coffee and toast, this is one of the best value breakfast locations in all of Medway.

As a family run pub, one might expect their service to be genuinely friendly. I'm happy to report that it was, so that's another tick in the box for the Waggon at Hale.

The pub is easy to find and has a small car park of its own. Parking is a little tight to the front, but overspill parking is available to the rear of the property. From the outside, the building looks like an old Tudor house. It's just a shame that it's less characterful inside. That said, it is clean, tidy and functional.

We'll return for Sunday breakfast in the future. I'll just be sure to fast for a day...

I went as part of a group of nine and we found it to be average at best as the evening was spoilt by a few things:

Firstly, we had been looking at the menus before our visit and had mostly chosen what we were wanting from the main menu. Once we arrived, we were told we could only order from the Sunday lunch menu (during a 17:30 booking) which was a smaller menu and there were several items unavailable.

Between us, we had several burgers with varying options of sauces and the clear lack of sauce in each burger made telling them apart a challenge once received.

The burgers didn't really taste of anything (no flavouring in the mince used to make them) and the cheese/bacon added to them did nothing to add to it either. Calling them the "ultimate" wagon burger was a stretch of imagination in our eyes.

One person had a roast dinner, in which the potatoes were soggy and the Yorkshire pudding was rubbery to the point of being uncuttable, never mind edible. The caption for the roast ended up being "the gravy was nice"

From the kids menu, we received a sausage that was so far overcooked we were able to bang it on the table which made a considerable thud. - When this was bought to the attention of the staff, the lady didn't seem to care and no meaningful apology or concern was likely.

You have to order at the bar here which isn't much of an issue and you can help yourself to cutlery/condiments from a nearby table.

The plus sides were the Starters and puddings:

Prawn cocktail was a hit with almost everyone along with the GF garlic bread. They went down a treat.

For the puddings we had a mixture of Sundaes, Salted caramel cheese cake and brownies, all of which were well received although the brownies varied a lot in temperature.

Overall this experience was a bit of a let down as the mains were of a low standard, but the starters and puddings redeemed them a bit.

We will not return based...