The George — Restaurant in New Forest

If I could give 0 stars I would. Myself and family were on holiday & staying nearby so booked the George for dinner, I have never experienced such unprofessional service in my life. We were a table or 5 adults and one young child. The place wasn’t up to our usual standard as we walked in but we were all hungry. The waitress who took our drink order asked my 20 year old sister for id as she ordered a cocktail. Unfortunately she didn’t have this on her but is with her parents and family and we are eating a meal plus she’s very clearly 20 if not looks older. The waitress got the manager over who continued to refuse serving her and quoted you would get asked for ID if you went to a nightclub. We have eaten at top restaurants around the world as a family and she has never had this issue. We weren’t happy but accepted it as my child needed to eat as it was late. A couple of minutes later I see the manager telling the waitress to not serve my sister. This new waitress comes over and my uncle orders 2 alcoholic drinks like he always does. The waitress said are they both for you and not her? We could not believe it! So basically accusing him of lying when my sister was of age anyway and they weren’t for her! We were so shocked and ended up saying let’s leave they do not deserve our money. We also tip extremely well. On leaving the waitress was extremely unprofessional and sarcastic saying we hope you have a good evening and being really confrontational. We were shocked! If I have to be honest the Waitress’s looked grubby and so did the establishment. Please avoid at all costs if you are used to half decent restaurants and service. I would not trust them anywhere near my food, thank god we never ate there. If I had to describe it in one word it...

A truly disappointing lunch experience. The George is in a lovely situation beside the River Avon and close to the historic bridge. Shame about the food.

Trout paté had a sticky consistency, it was bland and did not taste of trout, nor indeed of anything much. It was served with a couple of slices of slightly stale bread.

Tomato soup with basil sounded enticing, but when it eventually arrived it was a yellow soup. On asking we were told the kitchen had run out of tomato soup so we had been given a mixed vegetable soup. There was no apology for the substitution, nor had there been any check beforehand that we were happy to have this different soup.

The 'Korean bowl' had a base of sticky rice which seemed to have been fried into glutinous lumps. This was topped with a mince mixture that included bits of explosive chilli flavour. Quite weird: one mouthful was not spicy, the next unpleasantly hot.

Service was leisurely. After waiting about 30 minutes we asked a passing waiter if our order had been forgotten. We were assured not, there was a 40 minute wait because they were so busy (it seemed about half full to me). The food eventually arrived about 35 minutes after ordering, and our second course arrived after another 35 minutes.

(Heard in passing: someone complained about being served food on a dirty plate. The waiter was told the way to deal with this was to return it to the kitchen, wash the plate, then put the food back on it to give it back to the customer. Not the best approach, in my opinion.)

Although served in a pub in a lovely setting, this was of the worst meals it's been my misfortune to experience. Stick to...

Well, what a disappointing end to such a lovely meal. We were asked to pre-order the meals in advance to help the kitchen, which we did, because there was originally 16 of us. On arrival we told the waitress we were ready and told her that there was a meal not needed due to one of our party being absent, and to save it going to waste, or so we thought.

After the meal we took the bill and realised that there was infact one extra main meal for how many people were at the table, which was the meal we did advise wasn't needed. When we explained this, we were confronted by the member of staff who said, you ordered the meals, and they had all been plated up and the extra has been thrown in the bin. Now, usually if the pub was quiet the meal would probably have gone to waste, but on this occasion, it was rather busy, and we didn't believe for one minute this was true, being it a Sunday.

If we had been made aware at the point of ordering that we'd need to pay for any absentees we would completely understand. Or if we got told before the food came out, we could have, and would have spread the extra meal out between ourselves, but we didn't even get that option.

It was very disappointing to find this, especially as it was for a big wedding anniversary and instead of coming away with high feelings, we thought we should have...