The Woodman, Ware

Walked from Hertford to Chapmore End today with the intention of enjoying a nice lunch.

Starting with the toilets, the paper towel rail was hanging of the wall, the toilets stank, there is an open drain in the toilet and the tall bin (and I mean this bin is about 3 ft tall) for paper towels was overflowing at 12.30pm suggesting that the toilets hadn't been cleaned the night before or hat day.

All glasses were filthy for each of the 4 drinks we ordered.

The food was disgusting, £8 for a Ploughman consisting of oddly cut cheese with hard ends (not what you expect from a simple cheddar), ham (which I paid extra for taking the price from £8 to £10) which had been frozen and defrosted, which was soggy, with a huge amount of fat around the edges and a worryingly pale colour.
The bread was a soggy oven baguette, a limp salad, 2 hard pickled onions which I had to ask for, a ramekin of margarine instead of butter!

A ham sandwich at £5 followed suit, soggy fatty ham in limp white bread not the crusty white as advertised.

Chicken goujans were frozen deep fried fare which the kids rejected.

The kitchen staff do not wear kitchen whites and wear their own clothes, which is not a good sign for a working kitchen.

I also noticed that at least 5 of the key items from the menu were not available at the start of the lunch time shift and on a Tuesday lunch time which is the one day you would expect the kitchen to have been replenished over the weekend. One of which was the prawns, a lucky escape in hindsight.

I have serious concerns about the hygiene of this venue and the quality of food.

This is unfortunate because the pub itself is in a lovely village setting and has a small garden area where kids can play and has some good beers on tap. But I will never visit again.

6 Aug 2013 16:26