Butchers Block at the Bell — Restaurant in Maidstone

After being here before I was so looking forward to the lovely Thai food. ( especially eating out at the moment is a real treat ). We were serve by multiple waitresses one would take our drinks off the tray one wouldn't we had to move them ourselves which is perfectly fine and actually I would prefer. I had to ask one waitress to put her mask on while serving us!!!!! We were sat opposite the kitchen in fab heated area but unfortunately not so fab when the waitresses were playing with each others hair and constantly taking masks on and off ( one waitress with the mask the one I had asked to please wear it properly). Lots of scratching body parts!!!!! Not sanitising hands!!! No social distancing( for the two hours we were there ). The table next to us had a problem too and had a timing issue which was dealt terribly by the manager and I thought the poor couple were totally in the right!. When we got there one of our party went to use to toilet and reported to the staff that there was a problem with the running water in the toilets, when I went there was still NO running water in the ladies or gents toilets. ( and was told to use hand sanitiser ) the pub was extremely busy just think all those people not washing their hands and not many hand sanitising stations!!!! Was the water in the kitchen working? Who knows! The food is good but everything else in that place is a big fat zero, and I will not be going back the three other Thai restaurants in the town centre will be...

We were looking forward to our 1st visit as it's on our doorstep but left very disappointed. The place has been done out very nicely and there were plenty of staff. I ordered the fillet steak, the steak was very good and cooked medium rare the way I ordered it. The issue was the accompanying items, hasselback potatoes, there were 3 small potatoes that looked more like boiled potatoes with a light scoring on the top. Usually they would have deep scores and would be nice and crispy these were nothing like that and very bland. The roasted onion was more raw than roasted and had no flavour. The garlic butter was rock hard, I expected it warm so it could be poured over the steak. My partner had the lamb and said that it was really good. When they came for the plates they asked if everything was ok I said the potatoes and onion was undercooked and they said they would tell the chef, no apology. For dessert my partner ordered the Cherry Bakewell Torte with cherry and Kirsch sorbet. The torte was actually chocolate with no taste of almond or cherry, the sorbet was grainy and full of ice crystals and not smooth at all. It was left unfinished and the waiter told of the issue, they took it to the kitchen then returned to say they would take it off the bill with no explanation why it was chocolate not cherry Bakewell, she therefore had the crème brûlée which was ok. I had the peacan pie and it was nice. We will not be returning...

Unfortunately it was very poor. I have scored two stars rather than one because there was a significantt reduction in the bill to compensate. The main problem is that they say "Noi's food is cooked to order, so you can have each dish just how you like it " and this was proved totally untrue. One of our party is allergic to coriander and when asked to avoid it, in practice it was not possible. The only starter available was prawn crackers and literally we were told only one main dish was available. This turned out to be a very bland noodle dish. We were asked to decide whether we'd like our dishes mild, medium or hot and three of us went for medium as were told hot would be very hot. My dish as medium was very enjoyable, but I would classify as very mild, which is probably why my wife's mild selection turned out bland. On top of all this our main courses took nearly an hour and a half to appear and when they did one order was wrong resulting in three of us eating our meals while the other waited for his to be cooked. I may be wrong, but I feel the popularity of the take away facilty impacts on those dining at the pub. I feel it causes a problem in the kitchen which means food is pre-prepared (so not truly cooked to order in the way advertised). Friday night is busy for diners and take away and it seemed to me the kitchen...