The Valiant Sailor — Restaurant in Folkestone and Hythe District

Not sure what we experienced at the Valiant Sailor. I've heard good things, but also heard that they changed hands recently, so I am going to assume they haven't found a chef yet. The food was very basic with no apparent training involved.

STARTERS: The Buffalo wings were nice, but obviously frozen type, with a bottled sauce. I could have done a huge plate of those! Very tasty.

The nachos, however were very bland. They were very thin and oily, no bubbles on the surface, which gave no texture. Were they supposed to be deep fried, but dropped into oil that wasn't hot enough? This wasn't the only issue, they were served with slightly melted, grated mild cheddar cheese; not mozzarella for stringiness or anything with flavour. There was small pieces of pan fried chicken breast meat, but nothing in the way of salt or seasoning. This was supposed to be nachos. Where is the guacamole, the chilli, the sour cream, the jalapeños?

MAINS: The Waitress asked how the steaks should be cooked. A medium-rare steak should not arrive nearly well-done. The steak on the surf-n-turf was only slightly over, which suggests they were cooked for the same duration, the thinner one on the other dish being seriously overcooked.

The tacos were literally supermarket mince beef cooked so it was grey with no colour. The seasoning wasn't noticeable. They were served with two tiny dishes of a bottled chili sauce and what I assume was supposed to be sour cream. The tortillas were soft and pleasant, though I suspected they are also from a packet. This is another dish missing so many cultural ingredients.

The cottage pie was also very very basic. There was maybe three ingredients in the meat part. Minced beef, onion? and oxo cubes. There was no carrot and celery and the beef wasn't caramelised, hence no depth of flavour. The potato part was thin and watery. The presentation in the iron dishes with the grilled top was good!

Our waitress was nice, but very young and obviously inexperienced, and when she asked us "is everything ok", I did quietly mention that the steaks were over cooked and the tacos were bland, to which she replied "ok, thank you", and walked off. Bless her.

I spent time writing this with the intention of providing proper feedback rather than criticism. We paid our bill and didn't complain further as there seemed to be little point.

As mentioned, I don't know if you're waiting to hire a proper chef, but with the food being served as it currently is, you're unlikely to get many repeat diners, or recommendations.

You're new there, I wish you the best...

My booking reportedly did not arrive but we were seated anyway. Ordered two three-meat roasts and two cauliflower cheese sides. Got the meats on a poor plate with a potato and a parsnip, left us clueless. Later the sides arrived, one plate for the two cauliflower cheeses, and another for the two sets of veggies. Disappointed even before we dug into it. Meats turned out to be a random selection of four available meats, I would expect to be asked for preference instead. Veggies were on a wide scale between almost raw to rubbery. Luckily we ordered extra gravy because what was on the meats was virtually nothing. On the plus side, the cauliflower cheeses were quite good. Went to the bar to pay, I was asked what table I was. No numbers on the table so I point at our table, right in front of the bar, only us in there. Still, I was asked if I knew the table number. I did not. They figured it out eventually after some derogatory words from who seemed to be of the management to the waiter in front of me, then I paid and we left. It wasn't a mistake from us to try this previously locally famous pub/restaurant, but it would be our mistake to go back there before the next change...

Few little issues like the wrong sauces being brought out with starters, I had blue cheese and my husband had mine I think but the chicken wings were lovely. Would definitely recommend. The surf and turf comes with 2 small battered prawns/shrimp but the steak was done perfectly. Pudding was nice as we shared the mudslide, there was no caramel sauce as they had run out. One of our party ordered Eton mess but when it came out it had bananas and chocolate sauce, then when we enquired about it they said they'd run out of strawberries. This is fair enough but because she is pregnant she cannot eat bananas so it got thrown away which seemed as waste as had they have said when she ordered she could have ordered something else without the waste. I had a cup of tea and asked the chap who was serving for some milk please. He said he would bring it but never did and went on to serve another table so another person was asked after 10 mins of him not coming back.

The food is nice, if a bit jumbled, and the actual pub was nice, not too rowdy. Would go back despite the little issues.

Good parking spaces too and accommodating to...