The Sun Inn — Restaurant in Test Valley

I used to love visiting The Sun Inn, as did my thriving Meetup group. However, last March, three of us ended up attending the night of their big Easter Raffle and buying a few tickets. The landlord was looking for an assistant. No one volunteered, and because him and I were pally, he ended up making me hand out a whopping 75 prizes.

This in itself was fine, I didn’t mind doing this. However, I was on my feet for 2.5 hours, and we were the only - and I mean the only - table in the entire pub that didn’t win a single thing. All the other tables won at least one prize - even landlord himself won 3 prizes, and his barmaid who he went shopping with for the prizes won loads for her distant relatives in Canada and Australia.

Midway through handing out the prizes, the landlord told everyone that I would get something at the end. This never happened. Nor did any kind of verbal thanks. HOWEVER, it wasn’t about the lack of physical gift, it was the lack of verbal appreciation, and the false promise. I was still stood there 2 minutes after the raffle waiting for a thank you, for nothing at all to be said. I ended up just walking away awkwardly and back to my table. I waited there for half an hour and still no thank you or appreciation.

I decided to message him after the event asking about the gift I was promised and he had changed his mind (in other words, what he said to everyone was only for show!).

It’s such a shame that this was not sorted out because I used to absolutely love coming here for food, drinks, music, and more, and it...

Visited Sunday afternoon for a roast with some friends.

My husband and I (both vegan) ordered the vegan roast, which when it came out was a tiny square of nut roast and three roast potatoes with some gravy. The plates were virtually empty. Given that our friends (who had ordered meat roasts) had full plates loaded with meat, Yorkshire puddings, parsnips, potatoes, and cauliflower cheese, we were appalled.

The vegan roast was priced identically to the others, despite a severe lack of what was provided as default to meat eaters.

Given this, we complained. The waiter took the plates back, returning a few moments later with a small amount of broccoli on the plates, and miraculous extra sliver of nut roast that the chef 'apparently found' in the kitchen.

I wish I could say that the food was even any good after this, but the veg was soggy and limp, overcooked, whereas the nut roast was burnt and overdone to the point that it was crunchy and needed a steak knife to saw through.

Absolutely not impressed.

The only saving grace was the waiter bless him catered to all of our issues and kept a smile on to make our meal as good as he could.

The chef also almost saved themselves by delivering a very lovely and warmed up vegan Jaffa-stye cake. This was a pleasant surprise given the poor standard of the main dish itself.

I hate to be critical but I just want to warn any vegans who want to visit that the choices are limited, and even those are executed poorly - and with a price tag that just doesn't sit well for...

Shame about the food and service. The waitress had no idea about menu items, no idea what the WiFi code is, gave a late check back, wrong menus given, warm cider served. We were seated then left to look at the wrong menus on the table, had to ask for the correct ones when the lady came to take our order. Disorganised place. Apparently if you ask for no mayonnaise in a burger you have to state if it’s because of an allergy, or be expected to be at fault for not expecting a huge pile of mayonnaise laden coleslaw (which wasn’t mentioned on the menu) to be dolloped on your plate. Unfortunately, as it was touching the salad, and some of the burger these were inedible too. Check back came half way through eating, so too late to do anything about it. Only a relative of the landlord could be so bad, and rude (sister in law, we were told). It was really quiet too, we were the only customers when we arrived. We were offered a clean plate to put the burger on, laughable! Steak was tough, fork handle had sharp edges (so I gave up and asked for the rest in a doggy bag, my pooch took some time to chew through the steak). I asked for medium rare, it was blue - a good vet could have had it back on its feet. Don’t ask for cider on tap, it’s warm. If you ask for half a pint say it a few times, or you’ll get a pint. Outside seating area is nice, but it doesn’t adhere to Covid regulations. Unimpressed, definitely not worth the...