The Griffin — Restaurant in Wales

Ahoy, mateys, beware of boarding the Griffin’s pirate fish menu: The skulduggery has blundered me booty through a young buccaneer's hornswoggly.

I’ve landed many times at the Griffin, bamboozled by a fish menu nearly worthy of the price you pay. The setting reassures that no internal conflict is necessary when paying for the bill. Even the cutthroat antics employed by the server, regarding the procurement of a service charge on checkout, hardly dampened my memory of previous visits.

But this time, I walked the plank, never to return again! To start, my wife’s fish soup was a brown quagmire resembling the muddy puddle she nearly lost her wellie in while crossing a boggy field earlier that day. Her wellie got so stuck in the sucking power of the mud that her foot came out of it, making her scream while nearly falling headfirst into the puddle. Looking into that bowl was like a flashback without the humour, especially when you tasted it, contemplated the cost, and listened to a codswallop tale of how delicious it is.

I had three cold prawns that had died a death of hyperthermia on my plate. These were not king prawns, residing in a palace of flavours. They were shoddy, sad prawns cast out on an island of brown, mushy avocado. Tasteless, lifeless, and disrespected, much like I was. A high price to pay, but this was only the beginning…

We hoped not all was lost as we anticipated our main course. We enthusiastically discussed the stunning, tiring 7-mile walk around the Dale Peninsula, how hungry it had made us, and whether pirates still sailed around the peninsula. We soon discovered they had actually landed! Next arrived my wife’s Hake, which had been bludgeoned to death in a chorizo and tomato sauce, all flavours of fish scuttled in a red sea that expertly added nothing of notable quality.

My Gurnard, a fine-looking fish, had been drowned in a sweet, sickly-tasting and slurry-looking sauce. The adults' meals were confirmed shipwrecks, all had been lost at sea, but on land, things were better; my daughter loved her tiny children’s burger that came with a decent amount of well-cooked, crispy chips.

It has to be mentioned, our friendly buccaneer waiter from Somerset worked hard to overstate the treasures he was selling us. Nevertheless, we had learned our lesson and declined to be plundered further by ordering dessert. I begrudgingly asked for the bill, and the young scallywag reminded me of the optional service charge, which never actually feels optional. The dilemma was that he had done his job well, but the sauces hadn’t. I pondered: was this service charge a cutthroat move from a rapscallion, or just his in-house training? These questions I could not answer, as I was done for, confused, tired, unable to wholeheartedly partake in any trade deal with him at this time. So, I cowardly gave my wife my debit card and let her make the choice; she paid the bill and service charge. It felt like a cutlass penetrating deep into my heart. Wounded, we disembarked the pub and headed to the car. Soon, we were caught off guard by what appeared to be an ambush; we heard shrieks from a ship's mate running at high speed towards us. I cowered; was this the final attack? Was this the end? No, I had left my mobile phone on the table in despondency due to the night’s shenanigans. Not all was lost, and thank goodness my wife paid that...

The Griffin Inn talks the talk on providing a real foodie experience for seafood lovers, but on our visit failed to deliver on several fronts.

The pub was lovely and supported the atmosphere a great deal. The restaurant was perfectly pleasant. Our server was absolutely lovely, did a brilliant job of explaining the seafood menu and dishes - he also graciously accepted our comments on the food at the end without making us feel bad about giving negative feedback.

This unfortunately was where the good ended. We were the first guests in the restaurant that day. Our starters arrived a full 50 minutes after arrival (approx 40 minutes after ordering), and our mains then arrived 45 minutes after our starters. The starters were fine, though incredibly poor value. £5 per prawn, which looked and tasted no better than supermarket prawns was excessive, so too was £16 for a single crabcake that tasted more of potato than crab. That said, the curry mussels special and fish soup were very good.

Mains also fell short on value and quality. The children were both very happy with their food and one adult order of fish and chips was excellent but my turbot dish was £38 and was slightly overcooked, but was served on a delicious remoulade that was the star of the dish and overshadowed the fish. Another special of hake served with potatoes and a red pepper and chorizo sauce was a surprise as all the ingredients are delicious and the combination should be delicious, but the sauce tasted like a jarred salsa and completely overpowered the delicate fish. Finally, one of us ordered the halibut special. When cooked properly halibut is almost fluffy, this was so overcooked it was stringy - almost impressive for steamed fish. Served on a bed of nearly raw potato dauphinoise.

All the food was under seasoned.

At around £60 a head per adult for 2 courses we felt stung by the experience and like we had been caught in a tourist trap. I hope this was a one-off, but if made to attend again we would all have steered clear of the fish menu - what should be the most...

I've heard so many good things from the Griffin that I couldn't wait to try it myself, but in all honestly, I was left feeling ripped off.

Took the family here for lunch and was very disappointed. Service was friendly enough, but the food was a real mixed bag. Firstly, my 6 year old daughter had cod and chips, which looked and tasted amazing, but that's where the good ends. I ordered the lasagne, which honestly looked like it had been dropped and scoped off the floor and was very bland, the portion size was tiny, and the salad that came with it was dehydrated and very bitter. The chips were lovely, but there wasn't enough of them. It cost £18, I've had better microwave lasagne.

My partner and her sister had the beef burger, which we were told would take 30 minutes. I thought what beef burger takes 30 minutes to cook. Well, now we know initially when it came out the burger looked impressive but they were completely dry, baron of any juices and my partner had to us copious amounts of mayo to be able to eat hers. Her sister had two bites and decided it wasn't for her.

The father inlaw had fish pie, but about 20 minutes after we ordered they came out and said they didn't have any pastry left and asked if he mind a mash potato top which he was OK with but when it came it was literally mash potato in a bowl with a tiny bit of fish in it. It wasn't even baked.

The mother inlaw had the hake fish dish, which she did enjoy but said she felt guilty because everyone elses food looked so awful.

I guess in review, only order the fish dishes and take into consideration the hugely inflated tourism...