Royal Oak — Restaurant in New Forest

It's taken me a few days how to leave a negative review as I've never had a bad meal here and staff are normally very good. So it was a Sunday afternoon and we booked s table for 4.00pm. We were both looking forward to a nice Sunday roast but it was the complete opposite. When you're spending close to £25.00 for a Roast beef dinner with s side of Cauliflower Cheese ( when ordering i was told they could only do Cauliflower/ Broccoli cheese which i was happy with ) you're expecting a very good quality meal. The wife ordered the lamb by the way. The meal came out and I was speechless. The 1 slice of beef was a large wafer thin slice like out of a frozen tray, the roast potatoes were tough to cut and tasted like they had been sat there for hours, the Yorkshire pudding was very good, sausage meat stuffing was very gristly as was the chipolata and the seasonal vegetables of cabbage, carrots and peas were OK. The Cauliflower/ Broccoli cheese was sent back as they were obviously frozen as there was no cheese but a large amount of water in the bowl instead. I ended up eating just the 1 potato, the veg and Yorkshire pudding, the chipolata was chucked onto a side plate with the sausage meat stuffing, just awful. It wasn't that busy so I was surprised that we weren't asked how was the food. It didn't all go to waste as the wife finished most of it. We were happy to pay buy the quality of the products they use really is poor and will make me think again using one of this group of pubs again. My advice, do not waste your money on a roast dinner, certainly not value for money but spend it in one of the large carvery pubs sprinkled all around us. Finally, the staff were OK, the young lady who took our order was polite other than that the gentleman who seemed to be Head of House for the afternoon was so ignorant, not even a hello on arrival or a goodbye. Not my loss, maybe not theirs either but you have a lot of work to do because you will end up like a lot of the local pubs, CLOSED. Make changes whilst you can, this is a beautiful location but do not make that mistake by taking advantage of your customers and not giving them what they pay for, quality food and service, we are paying a high price to eat and drink in your...

Whilst food portions were generous there were some parts that were lacking. For example the veg served was cold, the crusty bread advertised with the starters was three circles of stale croutons for want of a better description, you needed a good strong arm to cut through the pastry on the steak n ale pie, which was very over cooked. But our main gripe and disappointment, of the four of us, was the handling of a request to not serve the blue cheese sauce that accompanied the chicken wings.

The server/manager stated that the sauce for the chicken wings would be in a dish on the side. However when the food was presented there was a white sauce on the plate. It was non descript as far as taste went so food was not returned to the kitchen.

The reason for asking not to have the blue cheese sauce was down to taste rather than due to intolerance or allergy. However the fact that the server/Manager laughed and joked that he knew the sauce had been added to the plate and that obviously there was no issue after all as the chicken had been eaten. Not impressed that he found it amusing.

As the wings were stacked the person who placed the order only ate the topmost one as that didn't come into contact with the white sauce and the remaining two were eaten by two others.

What is the point in making a reasonable request for it to be ignored.

This is not an experience we appreciated and therefore very unlikely to visit again...

Cannot rate highly enough. I came years ago but my recent visit confirms my great opinion of this establishment. Firstly, the staff were able to fit us in last minute for a very large party after our original plans fell through, so that in itself deserves a medal. Let's talk about the service: The staff were all very friendly and extremely helpful. I don't think I'm the only one who felt like we were treated more like regulars than strangers. Everyone was so kind and welcoming, it felt like family ❤ Now let's talk food: My partner and I really enjoyed our food! And also enjoyed the pizza we pinched from the kids. I really enjoyed the lamb with mixed bean stew! However I would have preferred to have it with a crusty roll rather than mash. My partner had the salmon, it was cooked beautifully, it was moist and not at all dry. It was very well cooked. We really enjoyed our puddings too! The only downside is that several people in our party ordered the chocolate brownies and were disappointed to find them served cold rather than hot. I had the steamed lemon pudding which was beautiful. My partner had the crumble and was disappointed that he couldn't finish it because it tasted so good!

Over all, a very positive review. I would recommend this eatery to anyone looking for lunch or dinner in...