The King William IV, Mickleham

Well, what can I say. Such a disappointment. Went to the King William IV after reading the reviews last Saturday evening. Pre-reserved a table for 4. Arrived and had a Pint of local surrey ale, which was very nice and well kept. So far so good. We sat at our table only for my wife to put her hand on a very large sticky patch of spilt drink or something and asked the bar girl if she had something to wipe the table with.....expecting her to come round and do the honours. Oh no! We were passed a grey wet cloth for us to do it ourselves. Same thing happened again when one of our other party also found more sticky patches..... After deliberating over the many choices (too many and complicated in my view) we opted for just some bread and olives to start and 2 x scallops and prawns for the girls and 2 x liver and bacon for the guys. The bread came out and was stale! I mean really stale. Olives were not nice at all and swimming in olive oil. We complained about the bread and we got a replacement which was OK. Scallops were good by all accounts, tho the prawns were those tiny frozen ones but not too bad all the same. Liver and bacon very average and not served with mash but with layered potatoes...main problem though was that they'd forgotten one of the liver and bacons so 3 of us were sitting there with our main courses getting cold waiting for the "forgotten" L&B to turn up. No admission that they'd forgotten, just it will be with you soon. It did turn up after about 10 mins but was under done as clearly was rushed. I could go on, but suffice to say I will never ever go to or recommend this pub for food. The girls behind the bar were clearly not trained in customer service AT ALL and the chef...well, he can't be a chef in the true sense of the word. This poor service could have been explained if maybe the pub was rammed, but it wasn't. There were only about 20 people in there (either old or young) and only about 12 or 14 eating. Go there at your peril, its back to the Red Lion in Betchworth for me!

26 Feb 2012 09:06

The Red Lion, Betchworth

Went to The Red Lion for the first time in 20 years after reading reviews and I must say the food was GREAT. Also impressed by the range of Gins & Scotch, a lot better than most pubs locally. Only negative for me was the lighting which was a bit bright but apart from that great. I'll be back!

8 Oct 2009 18:39