The Crow's Nest — Restaurant in Wales

We've been visiting for years but have finally had enough. The rest of my family refuse to go there but the one thing going for it is location close to the river and boating lake so we still visited occasionally. Always thought the food was fairly good value for money although often served with ingredients missing not matching the menu, and rarely "sizzling" as described. Service often slow but staff usually friendly so usually think it's an ok place to go overall.

This pub has been fairly recently redecorated and is darker than ever with little natural light which makes it feel very oppressive. The last two times we've visited we've just wanted to be back outside so keeping the visit as brief as possible would've been my recommendation.

However, we went in yesterday during a family day out and gave ourselves two and a half hours. It was about 2 p.m. and not busy. Main meal was ok and didn't take too long to arrive. It was such an unpleasant experience overall though. In the end we gave up on the children's dessert after asking twice for it - we waited half an hour for two scoops of ice cream, chocolate buttons and strawberries which didn't turn up - surely it's not that complicated? Daughter was really disappointed but we couldn't wait any longer. I might not have been so irritated but this happened last time we went in too. Perhaps a children's meal deal excluding dessert would be better :-(

Other thing to note from yesterday is our daughter tried to wash her hands in an "out of order" hand basin full of yellow stagnant water. There was no soap to wash her hands properly. Yuck.

Anyway enough said but we've finally come round to my family's way of thinking and don't intend to...

Our party of 3 had a christmas dinner here 2 days ago.. We were greeted by a member of staff, who showed us to our table.

The table was laid nicely, the cutlery was Immaculately clean, we had a christmas cracker each too.

We didn't have to wait long, and one of the staff asked if we were ready for our starters which was nice, as it wasn't a rushed, show us to the table, have your meal and out.

The starters were very nice, all 3 were piping hot, which gets a 👍 from me..

The main was a bit of a disappointment due to the meal being plated up.. We usually have the meat on the plate with all the vegetables separate, the problem having it plated is, we were all taking different veg off our plates and passing it to each other.. also, the gravey was in a small jug on the plate, too..nevertheless it was tasty, the meat was nice and all again piping hot.

(I would have preferred fresh and not frozen sprouts, too..)☹️

The pudding was again piping hot, and very nice we had the christmas pudding.

There weren't any mince pies, coffee or tea. But for £58 per head compared to £80 we paid at another establishment last year, It was very reasonable.

A big thank you to the 2 young ladies who were exceptionally pleasent, polite and asked a few times if our meal was ok..and to the rest of the staff who gave up their christmas day so we could enjoy ours ...and a big thank you to the food manager who let us come in for our meal at 1.30 instead of 3... excellent...

We booked our allotted time from 6:30 - 8pm. We decided to go to the crows nest as the three blackbirds was fully booked. Upon arriving it was very busy but we sat down and ordered our food. We were told due to a fryer being broken it would be between 45 minutes and an hours wait for food. We were sat by a table right next to a grabber machine which we found to be a bit obnoxious. Due to the wait for food we queued to order some more drinks which took a while as it was filling up with patrons. Food came which we ate with no complaints. Two of our parties decided they wanted desert so we queued again. This wait this time was ridiculously long. 10 minutes it took for us to get to the bar to be told even desserts could take up to an hour to be served which is just ridiculous. We opted against this and just left. That evening both my mother and girlfriend had similar symptoms of vomiting, chills & fever which can only be described as mild food poisoning, probably the cause of all food being shared in one fryer as they had separate meals. Overall it was a pretty poor experience, haven’t visited the establishment in many years. However I will say the staff were more than pleasant. An added note to management - to cut down on wait times at the bar it may be an idea to have a till and line for people who are dining and one for people who are hair drinking as the establishment seems to be filled with patrons who are there just to drink. Either that or...