"Very disappointing!"

A review of Royal Oak Inn by Jane written on Monday 23rd of February 2009

I was extremely disappointed with our visit to this pub yesterday. We went for a family get together, which is something we do not do very often, so we were all very much looking forward to it. We took our 5 month old daughter with us and chose this particular eatery as it advertises as a 'family friendly' pub. The only reason they can call themselves this is because they have a high chair! We arrived there and decided as our baby was wanting a sleep we would take her in her pushchair. However, our table was behind a beam so there was no way of getting this around and none of the other customer's in the restaurant seemed to want to accommodate us in any way by allowing us to get around their tables. So, we put baby in the highchair and decided to put the pushchair back into the car.

At first glance of the menu the food seemed nice, some different meals on the menu, which are always refreshing. I started with celery soup and roll which was lovely (£4.50), followed by steak and kidney casserole (£10.95), and a fruit crumble for dessert (£5.50). During our starter, baby began to get a little agitated as she needed a sleep so began to cry a little, as the pub is the kind of place which has no background noise or music, (so you only dare speak in hushed voices) everyone began to stare, one man in particular (who was sat behind my husband opposite) even made a rude comment about her crying! Surely if this is a family friendly pub, a baby crying for a few minutes should not get this kind of reaction from the locals?? He had 2 boys with him himself - did his children never cry as babies?? This made me angry and as a result decided to take baby outside until we had both calmed down. Once inside we began our main courses, my choice being steak and kidney casserole @ £10.95. This was a disappointment as it was basically a plate of gravy with a few pieces of dry beef in the middle - where was the kidney? However it did come with a large dumpling and two Yorkshire puds, which were nice and gave me something to mop up the gravy with. On the side came vegetables and potatoes also which I cannot complain about. My dessert choice was a winner as the custard tasted like a dream, however the custard to crumble ratio seemed to lean towards the custard side way too much.

Following the meal, baby needed a change and with there being no baby changing facilities, not even a surface to put my mat down on, I had to change her on the back seat of my car, which in February was not pleasant for her!

Next came the bill which we decided to split equally between all 8 of us and resulted in us paying £21.50 a head. This seemed rather steep considering the whole dining experience was rather unpleasant and the food was very average!

If you are thinking of taking a baby or a small child to this restaurant I would strongly recommend that you don't, for all the reasons above. This pub should not try to attract families as they are quite obviously not set up for it!

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