The Cricketers, Turgis Green

Had a lovely romantic meal here with hubby. Also love that it's child friendly for lunchtimes with our toddler. A tad expensive but good quality and good service, good range on the menu of local food and elegant but cosy decor. Would recommend and always high on the list for somewhere to go out for food locally.

17 Oct 2009 19:01

The Spring Inn, Sulhamstead

Husband and I stopped in here on a Saturday afternoon after a walk by the bird reserve hoping for a couple of nice hot chocolates and a jacket potato for our toddler. Seemed they don't do hot chocolate and didn't do jacket potatoes on Saturday for some reason. Also there were no highchairs, but luckily we had a booster with us. We ordered a couple of lattes and a bowl of cheesy chips because the menu seemed very limited and not child friednly at all (we weren't offered a children's menu and only noticed they had one as we left!). The lattes were nothing special and didn't even come with a little biscuit on the side (just a bowl of icky sugar cubes) and the chips were horrible oven chips with cheese grilled under a seemingly filthy grill. We could taste the old grill/oven and there were lots of bitter burnt bits. Needless to say this wasn't what we'd had in mind and we made a quick exit, wishing we'd gone further up to the Rowbarge or the Butt Inn, which always seem very cosy, good food and child friendly too. Staff were not really very helpful and a bit abrupt even though there were only about 5 other people in the whole place. New decor seemed a bit clinical and the old cosy atmosphere we remembered wasn't there anymore. We won't be going back!

17 Oct 2009 18:49