The Gate House, Monmouth

With such a fabulous location, I made a beeline for this pub but I'll avoid it in future. What a disappointment! My other half and I both ordered a chicken and bacon club sandwich (definition from Wikipedia: "A club sandwich, also called a clubhouse sandwich or double-decker, is a sandwich with two layers of fillings between 3 slices of toasted bread. It is often cut into quarters and held together by hors d'�uvre sticks...The traditional club ingredients are turkey on the bottom layer, and bacon, lettuce, and tomato on the top") and took our seats on the terrace overlooking the river. The table wasn't cleared, but we assumed it would be. It was later half cleared but as it turned out we put up with dirty glasses around us the whole time. And the sandwiches! My other half ate his, saying it was well below average, the filling seemed to be out of a tin. It wasn't chicken, it wasn't bacon but it did contain cheese, not shown in the menu. I cannot eat cheese, so I had to take mine back. I was told, rudely, that a club sandwich always had cheese, and that is what the term "club sandwich" meant. My fault then! After much persuasion, and an increasingly aggressive response from the landlady, I was brought a replacement sandwich. But she had it in for me! Yesterday's bacon, yesterday's chicken, and bread so stale I couldn't chew it. I ate what I could because I was starving, but it tasted so bad that I stayed hungry rather than struggle through it all. The landlady ought to remember that every customer could be a mystery shopper in this age of reviews Fortunately, and here's one good thing - there were mints in the toilet, complimentary, with which to mask the taste of the awful food.

28 Mar 2012 20:52