The Black Horse Inn — Restaurant in King's Lynn and West Norfolk

We were two couples and visited today. We all ordered burgers. We were told there was 5-6 minutes delay for the food but we didn't really know what that means in terms of time. We waited quite a while but I can't really tell how long because I didn't look at the time. My partner ordered and mentioned the guy taking the order didn't seem very inerested so they got our order wrong.

First came the two burgers for my friends. They asked for no pickles and one of them with sweet potato fries. They brought both of them with sweet potatoes. The waitress took back one of them to fix it.

Then they brought one of our burgers and then the 'fixed' one and my partner's. The fries were all quite hard and cold so were the burgers. I don't believe the fries were freshly prepared and the sweet potato fries were not crispy but rather soft and mushy and quite oily.

The fries were in little buckets that were half full so we assume that they just split our two portions into three as the one with the sweet potato was a lot fuller and so were the fries served on other tables.

Three of the burgers were missing the bacon and the fourth one was missing the cheese. The burgers lacked any flavour. The bun was falling apart and it was mushy. We finished them because we were hungry and we didn't want to wait for other ones and I'm breastfeeding so I was really hungry.

I decided to give feedback to the waitress who came to take our plates as we were all disappointed but my friend and my partner aren't the type of people who will raise this.

Then a lady came out but she didn't introduce herself so I don't know if she was the manager, the owner, the cook... She told me that if there was a problem I should've gone inside to tell them because they don't check on the tables outside. Maybe they don't value their customers sitting outside as much as the ones inside? Or maybe the customers outside should be charged less because we had to go inside to order and also they don't check on people outside. Anyway...

She also 'thought' me a life lesson that anywhere I go I should say when I find out about the problem.

She didn't apologise or offer any compensation, she just came to tell me off. I said we were just giving feedback as we finished the food and it wasn't tasting bad it was just bland and lacking any flavour.

We didn't go to complain because we were half way through the burgers when we realised there's no bacon. Also we didn't see any way they could fix it for us. We didn't want to wait for them to prepare other tasteless burgers or give us some old bacon pieces and we've paid already otherwise I would've asked for a discount. So there was no point.

I was going to order a dessert but after the disappointing and tasteless main I changed my mind.

The whole point was for the business to just take the feedback and try to improve but instead I was told off and the lady was just defensive and rude.

For £18 per burger we were expecting more. I saw a photo of their burger online from 2 years ago and it looked a lot bigger, with better bun and a bigger portion of fries. So maybe the quality declined.

Also I saw other people left good comments on the food but this was not our experience. So it might be a different cook, or only the burger is tasteless or just new staff lacking attention to detail or a defensive new owner. I don't know.

On the positive side the place looked good outside, I didn't go inside but my friend told me it was nice inside too so maybe they should just pay more attention to the food, quality...

Mrs T and I visited the Black Horse Inn to celebrate our third wedding anniversary during Norfolk Restaurant Week; in the main we had a good time.

It was a busy Friday night and we had the relatively late booking of just after 8pm. While service was friendly it was also slow to get going and our first course took 45 minutes to arrive. My pork belly was good, albeit somewhat forgettable; the single scallop it came with was the star of the plate. The wife enjoyed her mussels, but we both felt the portion size was a little meager; my half a slice of black pudding and small cube of pork belly gave the impression that it had been cooked by accountants.

Mrs T liked her slow cooked beef, albeit the crispy shallots had gone AWOL. My cod and poached egg were largely well cooked, albeit the skin was flaccid, they had kept the skins on the new potato olive oil mash (I know some people like this, but I'm not one of them), the tender stem broccoli had been substituted with spinach and they had been a too light with the curry oil (which would have added some needed depth of flavour). The menu stated that there may be substitutions due to seasonality, but this, again with the slightly stingy amount, took the edge off the experience.

My sticky toffee pudding was faultless, however the wife sent her Bailey's cheesecake back because it tasted of lemon and no Bailey's. They dealt with this request well and her replacement brownie was well received, although this light chocolate sponge was no dense gooey brownie.

We washed everything down with a bottle of "premium" (there words, not mine) zinfandel, which was okay, but at £24 felt like it was at least £8 overpriced.

Almost everything came with a somewhat thoughtless scattering of micro herbs; which surely are the foams of their day. Sadly they were often not well matched with the dishes they accompanied; coriander jarred against pork belly, apple, black pudding and scallop. Lemon balm and chocolate "brownie" were frankly odd bedfellows.

This wasn't an out and out bad meal, but it was disappointing. It's easy to be critical, but only where there are mistakes and especially when you're paying £74 for the...

We rebooked Sunday lunch there having cancelled 4 wks ago as one of us wasn't well. I wish I hadn't bothered... it was one of the most disappointing meals out I've had, ever. I don't mind paying 16 quid for a roast, but I do expect a decent plate of food. What what saved up was nothing more than a child-sized meal.

On my plate were two smallish slices of very average beef, three small roast potatoes, half a carrot sliced long-ways, a quarter of a parsnip, a spoonful of soggy cabbage and a crusty yorkie. Jayne's was the same, but with pork, and it was not even served with crackling or apple sauce, both of which were stated on the menu. I mean, we didn't even get a whole roast potato between us!!!

Less than 10 mins later, that was that. Including drinks we spent 2 x £16, plus £12.50 for two drinks, that's almost 45 quid for a really piss poor meal. It was just awful and felt like a total rip-off.

I complained afterwards and was promptly told, "we've been really busy, never had any complaints before (really???) and I'm sorry you feel like that"... as if it wasn't even their problem! They couldn't even offer any concession or recompense to try to retain my custom.

I explained my feedback was in their interest and not something I did lightly. It's hard to complain like that. However, I said we won't be going back and left. So, if you to eat out for a sunday roast, don't go to The Black Horse Inn, Castle Rising. If you do, make sure you've got a decent selection of cheese and biscuits for when you get home.

Alternatively, go to The Crown at Gayton. A choice of four carved meats, help yourself to potatoes and vegetables, and only £13.95, but you'll have to book ahead, which...