The Station — Restaurant in London

I like the Station Hotel. This is a good thing, as it is one of the few eating and drinking establishments in hither green that are worth a visit. To be rather blunt – it’s usually a choice between Fera across the road and the Station. Fera has better food (more on this later), but the station has more variety and better atmosphere…by a mile. I am not leading with an apology nor pulling punches here – I am hoping that my review might…wait for it…actually change something. My take is, if you live in Hither Green, don’t want to drive, and want atmosphere, you are pretty much facing the one-party-state that is the Station. Fortunately, they are benevolent dictators, I never leave there annoyed, worst case, a little disappointed – see my last review on the slightly tough beef shin. Regarding the shin - I recently cooked beef shin myself, and 1. It was a doddle…low and slow…2. As much as theirs was tasty, mine was better – being “not tough”, nothing fancy, just due diligence. I have similar gripes today, following our Saturday evening dining. Gripes and compliments, to be precise, but let’s start with my Christmas-stocking-Wishlist, if it’s not obvious already: I wish the station was just a little bit better food-wise. It is so close! I don’t want to be tempted by Fera’s reliably well executed (but admittedly rather one-cuisine) flavours – the station already has the potential upper hand by offering a more varied menu, not “just Mediterranean”. Here are some specific issues: The chicken vacuum, for starters. Aside from the chicken and ham pie, there isn’t any chicken. Nada. They used to have fab wings with a lovely chilli sauce (as a main or starter), and, if memory serves, there used to be another more French-styled chicken dish; usually a good 8/10. Now gone, all of this. Why? Gripe #2 – I think the same goes for sweet potato – it seems they don’t have a single one in any format on the menu – please correct me if I am wrong. This just seems like a huge oversight, and missed revenue – I think it is totally standard practice these days to offer sweet potato chips at a premium price? Moving on to #3: The finer touches are often missing. I asked for a bit of olive oil and parmesan to cheer up my tasty-but-could-use-more-love gnocchi on Saturday, and – no olive oil nor parmesan available. Really? The restaurant with no olive oil or parmesan? Do I hear anyone say “the pub with no beer”? They did provide ‘other’ oil and grated cheddar, so - they tried to accommodate, but, in my opinion, not good enough.

To reiterate, I like the Station Hotel, so I’ll finish this with some good points, and there are many, beyond the obvious very convivial vibe: Both the burgers we had were as usual a good 8/10. Good beer and good general booze selection. The fact that they stock a variety of tonic water pleases the teetotaller in me – yes, he does rear his fun-spoiling head on occasion. Their desserts rarely miss – in this case, their fig and apple crumble was the star of the Saturday dining show. Well, my part of that show, at least. Finally - the staff is always fantastic, as it was this weekend with a charming Hungarian bloke on his first night working there. He did what he could to help us out but could of course not magic up items that management decided...

Firstly, outside, the pub looked nice and, looking into the pub, the ambience and furniture looked very suitable and inviting. The month and year was Feb 2019, sunday afternoon 4pm btw. So, my wife and I went in to have a meal. Walking past the busy bar into the back eating area, the receptionist took us to a table (we didn't book). We asked for the menu and the wife chose the Sunday roast chicken dinner and I chose the Sunday roast 'leg' of lamb dinner. I ordered a pint of beer which was very tasty and the wife ordered a pink gin and tonic. 1st complaint: the pink gin and tonic SHOULD be served in a bowl glass, either with a cut up strawberry or a raspberry or two. Instead it was served in a thin straight upright glass with 2 pieces of lemon, like an ordinary Gin & tonic!? My point here being, that if my wife and I knew pink gin gets served as aforementioned described..and we only frequent a pub once a week, then how come bar staff, who work in the pub at least 4 days or nights each week, didn't know?! I typed in Google search in my mobile phone 'How to serve pink gin' then clicked on 'images'..and all the pics were there as I described, in a bowl glass served with cut up strawberry. One simple thing the manager was show these images to his staff to show how it should be served. Then the 2 meals arrived. My wife's chicken looked and tasted very nice. My roast 'leg of lamb' dinner on the other hand, wasn't. At home we have a roast leg of lamb aprox once a month and I know from cutting the mear from it each month, that there is a 'grain' to lamb meat on a leg..and the cutting of the meat should 'follow' the grain, so as to eliminate FAT being included in each slice of meat. Sure, leave the skin on, but the cut of lamb shouldn't have one third of the content of each slice served as FAT? Once I'd cut away the fat, like I said, there was only 2 thirds of the lamb left..and there were only 2 slices of lamb. At £14.95 I would have expected the chef to have excluded so much fat in his cuts. Finally..and most annoying of my 3 gripes: Yes, at 4pm I should expect there to be children in the pub. But, there were aprox 30 young children under 10 including many babies. This may sound very selfish? But with there being so many children, all making 'children' noises as children do, would it not have been a good to devote one whole side of the pub to be a 'Family' section in the pub's VERY expansive eating area? There's seating for 150/160 people at any one time. Surely one whole length of the pub for the children with a seating capacity for 60 or so persons could be organised? The tables were candlelit too and the ambience COULD have been quite cozy and almost romantic. I saw at least 2 other couples with uncomfortable expressions on their faces because of the number of boys and girls running in and out of the aisles. Rating? Could have been much better. Lack of staff training and...

Service/Atmosphere We had a super disappointing Sunday dinner yesterday despite the fact we enjoyed our groups company, the pub itself has a good vibe and is a nice space; however the food, drinks and service was a real let down. It took ages for us to be served for dinner and the waitress who did eventually look after us, although did her best was in an unfortunate position of running back and forth from the kitchen to check almost every query we had.

Half the menu was gone (why not inform us of that when giving us menus or indeed when we order?). The waitress returned multiple times to inform us that our orders also weren't available anymore and got to the stage we were told there weren't even any wine glasses (to be clear our party only requested 4 glasses).

Food Aside from the fact that half the menu wasn't available. There were odd options on there... 'Rump Sirloin'? which one is it? Rump or Sirloin? Even the wait staff weren't sure, had they not been serving this all day? I come onto what I feel is the most important topic to review.

ALLERGIES.

DOES NOT CATER FOR DIETARY RESTRICTIONS OR ALLERGIES WELL! TAKE CARE WHEN ORDERING!

My friend had called up in advance to discuss allergies for her and myself and was assured that there would be enough options.

Effectively the only thing she could have on the menu was chips.... CHIPS!

I was appalled to discover that the vegan roast was in fact not vegan at all, the wellington itself contains DAIRY as does the gravy according to our waitress. This is utterly disgraceful, to advertise something as vegan but sneak foods that they can't eat in - truly shameful. I myself am not vegan but I don't eat meat and I am very allergic to dairy so when ordering this option I was floored to discover how reckless this menu is and could have serious consequences.

I ended up ordering the only other thing I could have had, rice salad... let me tell you I was not prepared for the meal to be as basic and flavourless as it was - £14.50 for a bowl of rice, peas, a few slices of aubergine and 3 cherry tomatoes... absolutely no flavour, no seasoning, no dressing, no hope. It was inedible. I was really disappointed and others tried my meal to see what I was talking about and also agreed it was awful.

This is really disappointing as although we had a great time because of our parties own company it was just let down completely by the food and the service (Not the waitress herself i must stress, she did try her best - but the communication between the floor staff and the kitchen is seriously lacking).

Rethink your menu, particularly the dietary options as this really does cut off people who pay good money to enjoy good food with their friends and who leave with empty tummies and...