The Swan With Two Necks — Restaurant in Newcastle-under-Lyme

It was ok but I'll admit I was a tad disappointed. I had been hyped to visit this place by an in-law who knows that me and my partner are l foodies at heart and especially love a good Thai curry. So we went with some friends for a treat (it's sort of place you dress a little for and yeah the food may be a bit more pricey but you're there for the experience and good company)

A warm day like today, no windows open, immediately hit with stuffy air and gagging for water. Ordered drinks and food, server who attended our table (very chirpy and friendly) listed out our order person by person to make sure all was good, all was good. Food comes, servers have no idea where any of it is going and half the items are wrong in some way or another (for me I ordered a Thai green curry and I received a red, by the menu these are two very different dishes) and at which point I am famished and would rather just eat (I like red curry it's just no what I ordered but heyho). All looked lovely and smelt good, whatever lets just enjoy the food.

The second I put that curry in my mouth 😅😅😅 oh dear I turned to my partner and it like looking in a mirror. The faces we both pulled said everything, it wasn't good. I'm not sure how they managed to get it like this but this curry was so... Acidic. Like when someone has put way too much balsamic in your tomato bake or over vinegar'd your chippy chips so that they need to take swimming lessons. You could not taste anything but this acidic flavour, too much rice vinegar maybe?? I don't know but it's not a great sensation/flavour when you pair it with the creamy coconut milk its made with, reminds one of off milk. Not sure what happened but someone definitely didn't taste test what they were cooking. Or hasn't been to a half decent Thai place recently to tune themselves.

At the end of it all I went to use the loo, left the cubicle to wash my hands and thump. My head collides with a lamp shade that sits at about eye level above the basin, and not a soft shade it was made of some kind of thick ceramic like material or something similar. Regardless it felt like rock when my head hit it. Bear in mind I'm on the tall side but not freaky tall.

All this put together in one nice summary: It was disappointing and maybe I could go again one day if pushed but I could honestly have a nicer time elsewhere which is a shame because clearly a lot of effort goes into it. Taste the your food you're making. Open a window when it's swampy. Make the lamp shades not in the gangway of people's heads.

Great job to the waitress who served our table...

The food was good but not worth the hefty price tag.

Because it really is quite expensive - £5 for 8 olives is pretty disgusting. And the pea puree/mushy peas portion was laughable - probably no more than a teaspoon in the world's smallest dish. The piece of haddock, though, was a beautiful piece of fish, and cooked to perfection.

All mains are around £20 and rather small portions - definitely more style over substance. And when you order belly pork with CRISPY CRACKLING, you expect the "crispy crackling" to be part of the piece of meat, and not a single crushed-up pork puff (probably from a packet from behind the bar). It was crumbled on top of the uneatable, tough and gelatinous strip of rind on the spiral of belly pork piece like the merest dusting of snow. It actually took about 5 minutes to even notice it was there.

And it's a personal gripe of mine to see a service charge added to the bill. I believe waiting staff should earn their tips, that way you get more attentive staff. Because there were several times when we wanted to get a member of staff's attention, but often they seemed miles away and not paying much attention. However all the staff were very friendly and polite, and helpful when on the case. I know you can ask for the charge to be removed, but we kept it on because we didn't want to make too much of an issue, and they all seemed to work hard.

I know it's not a pub any more; it's a gastro pub, and they're providing a more fine dining experience, but it left me, and most of our party, unconvinced. We couldn't really decide if we'd enjoyed it or not! And that's not good - especially when we'd spent around £50 per head.

So would I go again? Yes, but only if someone...

We were a party of 6 adults and 4 children (2 adults joining for drinks only). The first issue I had as a parent was that the highchairs were awful. The harness on the first wouldn't tighten and the replacement given to us had a single lap belt which our 18 month old climbed straight out of so we had to spend the whole dinner distracting him to keep him seated. We ordered the children's food first and asked for it to be brought out first but after the adults' food had been ordered their starters arrived first before the children's. We waited an hour for the adult's mains which was a long wait. The food quality overall was very good. It was let down by ungenerous portions of vegetables, particularly with the pie. When this was mentioned to the waitress she was really nice and said she could get more which we said thank you to. This was followed by a senior member of the wait staff bringing the plate back with a very small amount added to it telling us passively aggressively that the portion was the usual size. Well why were we offered more? I ordered the Nourish salad which was rice based. The rice was hard and inedible. I was offered a replacement or the option to order something else but at this point we'd been there nearly an hour and a half and I didn't want to wait any longer so politely declined. On our way out some of the waiting staff smirked as we left, I guess we caused quite a stir with our demands? I don't think we were unreasonable and think it's a good measure of a place whether they can handle criticism...