The Rose Garden — Restaurant in Rochford

We visited the Rose Garden a couple of weeks ago after seeing so many great reviews. Honestly, I don't know how they got these reviews, but really wish we had a similar experience. On entry, we were greated by the chef, nice and happy. The waitress was friendly but incredibly slow, especially as we were one of two tables in for lunch. We asked for a highchair for my 10 month old, it came and was visibly filthy with dried on food on the top. When ordering (sausage and mash), I had asked for my vegetables to be placed on the side and to not be seasoned as I would share with my child. I even heard the waitress shout this to the chef when leaving the kitchen. The food arrived so heavily seasoned that I struggled to eat it, my husbands food was also heavily seasoned with salt that it was barely edible. We had to ask for the toilet lights to be put on as they were switched off from the fuse board, and while there was a baby changing table, it looked handmade and didn't have any safety straps or a sanitary bin for the nappy (I'm totally fine with taking it home, but just noting for others). I genuinely wanted to give this place a good review and wonder whether our experience would have been different if we didn't have our child with us. I wouldn't recommend for people with young children, and unfortunately am...

We booked here (with my dad) for a Sunday carvery after he’d previously had a good experience. However, today’s experience was very poor. Firstly we waited quite a few minutes to be greeted. Then waited 10-15 mins to have someone bring menus (people arriving after us got menus earlier). You then have to wait to be called up to the carvery (again, we waited 10-15 mins) where the chef serves you (so the person who was cooking was also serving). We stood waiting for several minutes at the carvery counter for the chef to appear. My 80-something dad had to find a chair to wait on. After all that, the food was meh (turkey a bit dry, pigs in blankets overcooked, cauliflower so overcooked it was like mush, veg ok). The meal cost over £100 for 4 people (1 course plus 1 drink each). Overall very disappointing....

What a complete shambles! Table wasn't ready upon our arrival and had to wait 20 mins. The service was appalling, no visible presence by waiting staff. Constantly looking for someone to make a drinks order or ask for a menu. Nobody checked to enquire weather we were happy with our food. The starters and desert were good and portion sizes were generous. The meat from the carvery was delicious however apart from the cauliflower cheese the vegetables were poor. Roast potatoes burnt and soft. Parsnip hard and oily. Broccoli tired and limp. Batton carrots and mangetout dry. Plenty of flavor in the gravy. Had heard many good things about this restaurant, however we were very disappointed. The gents toilets were filthy, looked as if they hadn't been...