The Bridge Inn, Upper Woodford

What a beautiful location! However, if you're thinking about having a meal at the Bridge Inn....then please think again! We booked a table for Sunday lunch for 8 people so we could meet up for a special family gathering. Firstly, we were told that they had run out of a few things on the menu, including some items on the specials board. This wasn't surprising as it did seem to be relatively busy. However, by the time our order was FINALLY taken, they had run out of a lot more menu items than first told so we had to re-think our choices. Considering it was a sunday, they only had beef or chicken available for the roast options, but were later told that they only had one portion of chicken left so this was in fact effectively just one roast option. We were told that we could have duck roast at no extra cost. We worked out that about 60% of the total menu was unavailable which is just unacceptable. Our main courses finally arrived nearly an hour and a half after ordering them. I can honestly say they not one meal was to the required standard considering the prices being charged (�12.50 for the roasts). After waiting another ten minutes for some cutlery, we all tucked in to our meals. My meal (sausages and mash) was not great. One of the sausages was not cooked properly and the mash had been standing in gravy for so long in the kitchen it turned to slop. The beef roast dinners were a terrible standard. The beef was extremely tough and the yorkshire puddings were rock hard. One of the dinners was served in a deep bowl which made cutting the meat up very hard indeed. The one roast chicken that was ordered turned up as an overcooked chicken leg and some shrivelled up new potatoes that were a substitute for roast potatoes. The roast duck roast was not much better. When asked why the 2 'chicken' roasts didn't have roast potatoes as described in the menu, we were not given an answer. The waitress went into the kitchen to ask and never returned with an answer. We waited about half an hour after finishing our meal for the plates to be cleared away, by which time the pub was nearly empty - so no excuse. At not one point through the whole meal were we asked if 'everything was ok?'. By the time the plates were cleared away, we were not asked whether we wanted desserts or coffees, just completely ignored. The service we received was utterly discgraceful and I would not want anyone else to go through the same. Needless to say we wont be returning nor recommending this pub to any of our family or friends.

17 Jan 2010 20:42