BITE user comments - rachaeljohnston
Comments by rachaeljohnston
Following my complaint, I have been in touch with Whitbread (and M&B who now run this establishment) to complain and they (Whitbread) couldn't have been more apologetic. We have been given a full refund and vouchers to boot! Doesn't make up for not getting what we thought we were going for, but does part-way restore my faith in "chain breweries". I just hope that the service and attitude of the staff improves in the future.
14 Oct 2008 17:06
Also... could anyone tell me which brewery now runs this as my brother thinks it isn't a Beefeater. Many thanks x
6 Oct 2008 11:45
I am writing further to visiting the Ramblers Rest on the evening of Saturday 4 October 2008.
My brother booked a table for eight people at 8pm for a special family occasion having visited your pub before, and receiving both good service and good food.
Having advised us of where we would be eating, some of us took the opportunity to have a look at your website to see what the menu was like, and were very happy to see the array of food on offer. We were all looking forward to a good meal in nice surroundings.
We arrived a little early and so decided to sit in the bar area and order drinks (the area around the bar was very cold). We took this opportunity to have a look at the food menu so that we would be ready to order when we sat down (the food menu on the tables at the Ramblers Rest is not the same as the one on your website! Instead we were greeted with a menu which resembled that of a Harvester pub!). Your website states "The Ramblers Rest is currently running a fresh new menu, with lots of tasty dishes including freshly made pasta of the day and Braised steak and pale ale pie", where was this on the menu?!
At around 7.40pm we were told that our table would be ready in five minutes. At 8pm we were still waiting to be seated, although this was not a major issue as our table was booked for 8pm anyway.
I would also like to point out that when my brother called to book the table he enquired about vegetarian meals. The person read out a very long list of vegetarian options however, when we studied the menu there were three options, four at the most. Hardly a great choice!
Once seated at our table the waitress came over and her first words were "I have the job of delivering the bad news, there are some things on the menu which aren't now available". She went on to advise that the ribeye steaks was not available, nor the rack of lamb or the scallops. Four of our party were extremely disappointed as they had wanted to order the ribeye steak. We were then given five minutes to peruse the menu again to choose an alternative. Three of our party then decided on the 10oz sirloin.
We duly ordered our starters and entrees.
The starters arrived after rather a long wait, and a member of our party had been to chase the order up. Some of our party finished their starters before others and the waitress interrupted our meal by clearing the plates before everyone had finished... appalling! We felt very rushed.
One of our party took the opportunity of the break between courses to visit the toilet. She was shown to the disabled toilet, next to the men's toilets, where she was greeted with water (we presume) all over the floor! Two of our party popped out to the smoking hut after the starters, to find one of your waitresses in there with a drink and chatting to a friend on her mobile telephone. When we appeared, we overheard her saying, "I'd better go, I'm at work". Whilst I understand that staff members are entitled to breaks, this didn't look very professional.
We then had to wait around 30 minutes for our entrees. When the entrees arrived, the three 10oz sirloins were announced as 8oz steaks by the waitress. We advised that this was the wrong size, to be told that there were no 10oz steaks and we should have been advised of this when we placed the order... we weren't! One of the three steaks should have been accompanied by a black and blue sauce, which took forever to arrive and when it did it was cold! It was sent back to the kitchen, where I presume it was "stuck back in the microwave". When it returned, the sauce was still only luke warm however, the jug it came in was piping hot!
We were offered desserts and coffee, in a surly manner, but decided not to partake for fear of having to take up residence in order to finish them.
When the bill arrived the manager had deducted �25 as a gesture however, this did not make up for the bad service and poor customer care we received. When the waitress took our credit card away, she actually snatched it!
During the whole evening, we were made to feel as though we did not matter. Another table of four people had to actually re-order their starters AND entrees as the pub had run out of ingredients for some dishes. I would certainly not expect a pub (or restaurant) to run out of ingredients at 8pm on a Saturday night, which in my view is prime time dining.
We certainly shall not be recommending your pub to our friends and acquaintances in the Surrey area. What's more, you will see that I have copied this letter to Beer in the Evening to advise them of our experience, and also Beefeater (as I have subsequently found from perusing the internet that the Ramblers Rest is now a Beefeater) as we would not have visited had we known this.
Food was edible but not at all enjoyable.
6 Oct 2008 11:45
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The Plum Tree, Holborn
I have been here a few times and had always rated is as okay, nothing special. Quite a quiet place. I went this time with five colleagues from work for a quick lunch. It WAS NOT quick! We ordered simple dishes, three of which were just sandwiches, and we waited for 45 minutes! We only have an hour for our lunch breaks, we had to literally force everything down quickly and then leave. The service wasn't brilliant either. The only "excuse" for the food taking so long was that the chef was temporary... I hope that means that they weren't sure whether to keep him on or not... and the answer is NOT TO! I would have thought that the least they would have done as a gesture of goodwill would be to give us our drinks on the house (which were soft ones afterall!)... we then had to stand and work out our own bill as we wanted to pay separately. We were rushing and to add to the stress an engineer was messing about with the till!
I will not be going again.
25 Mar 2010 14:32