Plough, Cotonback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
Always have a great Sunday lunch since i heard reports of a new head chef??! Have been several times and service food has been superb. Real ale is pretty good too, very much like the Adnams. Fresh clean style, and cosy when the real fire is alight. So nice to have a pub like this near me.
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Very village hall like interior. Expensive 3 course meal. Have never had a 3 course meal and gone home hungry. Eat before you go, at this pub less isn't more!
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Do not order the Gala Pie as they will get very confused.
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I eat at the plough in Coton on24.09.11 Dinner was great!!! the four of us loved all the food. The special Partridge was wonderful, so was the steak and the burger. Kids gammon was a bit to big, but not complaining. Service was Very Very slow! and our waiter could not remember the wine we were drinking. Also it took twenty minutes to get anyone's attention to get our bill. But I will still be back. (maybe more staff needed in the restaurant. Thanks Dale H.
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We went to the plough over the bank holiday weekend and was not disapointed at all. The food is clearly home-made and well presented on the plate, there was a good choice of food aswell. We sat outside on the decking which was lovely as it was a nice sunny day. Pimms was served properly with lots of fruit and ice and my partners wine was well chilled and refreshing. Service was prompt and attentive with plenty of staff working so no waiting. It is well priced and we will be returning again very soon to sample those excellent chips. I cant see how previous reviews have been so bad our visit was perfect and it was a very busy day for them, all i can say is well done keep up the good work.
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we went for suday lunch it was fantastic. the staff where very friendly and helpful with there knowledge of the menu. i had the scallops which were cooked to perfection and it went with a lovely pea puree. i then had roast beef which comes cooked med rare and it was spot on. i would like to thank all the staff for making it such fantastic lunch especially the chefs for cooking such amazing food. i will be recommending it to all my friends and family
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Road works on the Grantchester road means the road is closed until at least a month.
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What a spread of differing opinions there are about this place. But after a visit a couple of days ago my comments are firmly aligned with 'gloryglums' below. I won't bore you with every gory detail of the meal, but one particular snippet sums this place up perfectly.
One of our group ordered a starter of 'seared scallops on a bed of salad and pea puree with a pork crisp', and very nice it looked too on the plate. But after only one bite, my companion exclaimed rather loudly that the 'seared' scallops were stone cold, so he took it back to the bar explaining that seared means hot. A few minutes later the waitress brought it back with a warning that the plate was hot. Instead of removing the scallops and doing something with them they had shoved the whole plate under the grill. The scallops were now warm all right, but so were the pea puree AND THE SALAD, and the pork crisp ( which looked suspiciously like a piece of dried ham ) was now blackened around the edges. Unsurprisingly it was totally rejected, as was the offer of something different. To save both my and your time I won't even start on the other nine meals !!
And talking of salad, which was the accompaniment to several items on the menu, it merely consisted of those trendy mini chard leaves with a few small bits of red lettuce added. Probably straight out of 'gloryglums' plastic bag. There was nothing else that you might get elsewhere to make it more interesting, like onion, beans, beetroot or peppers.
And don't get me started on the price of drinks or I'll be here all night.
Very expensive, extremely disappointing, and they won't be getting our custom again. I'm surprised that their current rating is as high as 5.3.
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We went to the Plough this weekend. What a great little hideaway
outside of Cambridge. This place caters to everyone. My kids had pizza's,
whilst we sat in the garden enjoying a nice bottle of wine.
We stayed so long that my Wife and I stayed for dinner. The service
was great and the food fantastic. We will be back,
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On a spontaneous day out in Cambridge, we did a quick search for local gastro pubs (we had two little dogs with us), and came up with the Plough in Coton, which seemed to have a few good reviews.
What a horrible mistake. The decor and atmosphere were decidedly chain pub, so I braced myself for a menu of scampi and prawn cocktail. In fact, the menu does a decent impression of Pizza Express (which was a bit confusing given the number of families eating - perhaps there's a separate kids menu?). Prices were London levels, so we attempted to take the place seriously and ordered a couple of pizzas, some polenta chips with parmesan and a portobello mushroom pate with herbed bread, costing a total of �30. We should have listened to our inner Londoners, left the dogs in the car and shot off to an actual Pizza Express, who at least have a vague idea of what they're doing. What idiots.
When my partner came back from ordering at the bar, he was armed with tomato sauce and mayonnaise sachets. I defy you to find me a 'gastropub' inside the M25 which offers sauce sachets. They had also run out of knives, and told him that they 'couldn't do' starters because they'd never know when we'd finished them (we were sat in the garden). Thus all the food was served at once and I'd already started pulling faces.
I think the 'all food MUST be served at once' policy was quite smart of them, really, because had I seen the starters first, I'd have run for the hills, saving me �20.
Anyway, our pizzas turned up, looking exceptionally boring, and the knives were brought 10 mins later, when they were good and cold. The pizzas were on pretty decent dough bases, but that was it. Crap cheese, tomato sauce from a bucket, pre-formed meat and no flavour whatsoever (not even the msg laden sort). Any food which is improved by tomato sauce in a sachet is not worth bothering with, and this was a prime example.
But the pizzas were a delight when compared to the 'starter' and side dish that came along with them. The polenta chips were cut like house bricks and completely unseasoned. The cheese shavings, which had the texture and shine of packing materials, were of indeterminate age, no flavour and little flexibility. I could've used them as hairpins. If that was Parmesan, I'm President Obama. They were completely inedible and flavourless. Even the sachet sauce couldn't fix them.
But the crowning glory was the portobello mushroom pate with betroot something-or-other. It was accompanied by crostini from a bag, god knows how old, on top of which someone had enterprisingly sprinkled lumpily chopped parsley. The salad was three small handfuls (literally dumped as picked up) of iceberg, rocket and some darker leaf. No dressing. The pate, was more of a mousse (urgh! there is no more upsetting texture unless you're in a very expensive restaurant), obviously spooned out of another catering size bucket. Rank is the only word I can offer. And the beetroot had long ago stopped being beetroot and become something altogether more upsetting. I bravely squashed some onto a 'crostini' and was rewarded with a taste that was exactly how nasty pub toilets smell. I fed it to the dog and she enjoyed it a lot. But then she also likes to eat cat poo, so you can see the appeal. Having grown up in a vegetarian household, I know that this dish was deeply, deeply wrong.
This meal would have been shocking for �15. But to be charged �30 for some provincial atrocity is just horrifying. It's not a gastro pub, and they should be ashamed to call themselves one. I don't think they've ever been to a gastro pub. I doubt the chef has ever been allowed to go anywhere but Bookers. If it was bought by Wetherspoons this place would experience a sharp upturn in the quality and value for money of their food, and that's really saying something. I had to be restrained by my partner from making an enormous scene and demanding our money back. So instead I'm going to write this place up everywhere I can online so that no-one else unwittingly wanders in to get robbed.
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The food was fantastic, but the place was understaffed, and we waited 45 minutes for our meal. We arrived 12pm on a Saturday, hoping to miss the busiest period as we have a toddler who is not a fan of waiting, but there were already several tables there - don't know what time people start lunch in Cambridge! The free main for children was a good offer, and the playground outside is great, but his water came in a large heavy glass, and the fork was as long as his forearm! To make this place child friendly (there were lots of families), please buy a few plastic beakers and some children sized cutlery. Oh, and employ a couple more waiters and some extra hands in the kitchen. When the place is half empty, you shouldn't have to wait as long as we did. (But the food was fabulous - did I say that already?)
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And a pram as well.
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You stood back and watched your wife juggle two large drinks and olive trays?
Shame on you sir.
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Two visits - two absolutely abysmal experiences. First, the play area in the back dishonestly suggests this establishment is family-friendly. The menu is geared strictly towards adult (so-called) lovers of faux gastro pub food (more on that in a bit). In a near-empty pub I was amazed to watch four staff members standing around watching my wife juggle two large drinks and olive trays while trying to push a pram back to our table in the garden. No tip there obviously - though they certainly expected one regardless. Secondly, while the beer selection is somewhat average, the prices are far from it - you'll need to visit a high-end pub in central London to see these rates. Thirdly, the food was not even mediocre. Sure this place has the prices of a top-end gastro pub - yet it lacks the innovation and flavor to compete with your average Greene King chain pub. Forty-eight quid later, I left wishing I'd spent my cash on a proper meal down the road at the Three Horseshoes in Madingly.
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Went today for a quick meal and a lager, and it was fine pub fare, basic but good. Wouldn't want to drink at the bar as this is not really a pub any more. Great for a walk or cycle out from Cambridge in the summer, but not somewhere you would feel welcome having a few beers. Gets a 7 just for the nostalgic trip down memory lane. Wish the John Barleycorn hadn't closed years ago.
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Almost there.
My friends meal lack imagination and parts of my meal were cold, while I know the food is pre-prepared I don't want to be reminded that's it's just come out of the fridge.
I ordered the '05 Sancerre and got the '06, I don't think it would be too hard to keep the wine list up to date.
No deserts are baked on site, while the take the packaging off before they serve it some home baking would be nice.
Menus tattered and dirty.
Amazing interior and garden, must go back in summer. Service was excellent and waiting times about spot on.
Beautiful location.
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very much a restaurant rather than a pub these days. they tend to frown on you if you are just drinking not eating. which is a shame as the beer is good and it has one of the best pub gardens that I have come across.
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