Westerton Arms — Restaurant in Scotland

We ate at this restaurant having been gifted an Itison voucher. The voucher offered a 2 course meal from the main menu, with some noted exceptions (such as seafood dishes not being included). We looked at the menu prior to visiting and were impressed by the range of dishes which looked interesting, especially for a pub restaurant. On arrival we were given menus and some time to look through them. When the waiter returned and we presented our voucher the waiter took our menus away and got the ‘special’ Itison menu. This ‘special’ menu contained 6 or 7 of the most basic, standard items from the menu (steak pie, macaroni cheese, burger etc.) This was such a disappointment, before our meal had even begun, especially as I had advised the restaurant that we had this voucher when making the booking. We then ordered our meals. Given the limited menu we chose from and simplicity of those dishes I would have expected the standard to be reasonably high. However we were presented with plates including overcooked vegetables and a burger salted to the point of being inedible. We raised a complaint with Itison as we honestly felt the menu we were presented with was in contradiction to the advertised offer. They contacted the restaurant with our complaint and the manager offered us a £50 voucher as the experience had not lived up to the offer. This seemed reasonable and I considered the matter dealt with. However, 6 months later, after numerous phone calls and emails and an escalated complaint later we have not received this voucher. It's such a shame as on the face of it this establishment seems to be trying to ‘fit in’ with a competitive offering in Bridge of Allan (there are many other outstanding independent eateries which I would highly recommend.) The staff on our visit were attentive and the ambience is pleasant, but overall this visit and the subsequent communications were extremely...

The vegan options could not have been saltier (hummus starter and risotto) if they tried and the portions were massive, if you were to finish these dishes you would get very ill, my partner had these dishes yesterday at lunch and he has felt sick since. In addition the Risotto had large pieces of raw onion. The bruschetta was lazy and consisted of cherry tomatoes sliced in half (unseasoned) on top of rocketsalad on a very oily piece of bread and about 8 pieces of varying size chopped red onion, it did not taste like much but oil and balsamic vinegar. The "vegan" burger had a very odd patty like nothing ive ever had before, the staff could not tell me what brand it was but returned with a list of ingredients - it had a very odd meaty flavour and was incredibly tough and chewy like rubber and on top of the patty was melted cheese that tasted oddly like halloumi which is obviously not supposed to be on a vegan burger (i only had one bite since i did not trust it to be vegan). With the burger came fries that had no salt at all which was surprising because everything else was so salty it was hard to eat, it also came with coleslaw that had only red cabbage and a "sauce" that tasted like water and cleaning solution. I would not recommend eating here as a vegan nor vegetarian unless you prefer an overconsumption of salt at...

So I ordered the black truffle and wild mushroom risotto and felt this review should be a warning to anyone thinking of ordering it:

The overcooked prison bowl of mush I received was delivered with a kind smile. Half a packet of bitter dry walnuts covered the puree as I hoped to see signs of truffle hiding somewhere. But alas no sign whatsoever and not even the slightest hint of them let alone any truffle oil. The wild mushrooms were pickled and cooked so long as to remove any sign of texture and gave the dish a sweet & sour, almost Chinese, flavour similar to the sweet pickle you might put on a piece of cheddar. Then I discovered a cardamom seed pod, after biting into it, rather unpleasantly moving this dish into the Indian category. If I had eaten half of the walnuts I might not have noticed the pungent mix of international cuisines thrown into this rice goulash but sadly I did. I pity the Italian that might dare to try this dish though I doubt any would be so clueless as the chef that came up with it. As for the vegan parmesan, maybe it melted away but would not have been able to save this one from the disaster...