A pub lunch is definitely a firm favourite of mine when I’m not on the healthy eating bandwagon. This weekend Luke and I had the opportunity to test drive a newly re-opened pub in Nottingham, where we live, so we jumped at the chance to grab a free lunch. The catch was that it was part of the ‘Sizzling Pubs’ chain, we would never normally eat in a chain pub out of choice because we don’t like to pay for something when we feel that we can get something better for the same price. For example this whole meal that we went for would have cost us nearly £30, which we would have normally spent somewhere like Nando’s or Pitcher & Piano and get something that we know will be good quality. But, we gave them the benefit of the doubt and decided to go along and see what they had to offer.

I’ll take you through our experience that we had on Saturday afternoon and let you make your own decisions. We arrived just after midday and the pub was already quite full, which we thought was a good sign. There was a mix of people in there such as a group of ladies having a lunch and some guys having pints to start of their weekend, it was welcoming and fairly friendly.

We introduced ourselves at the bar and the barman seemed confused as to why we were there until the assistant manager came over and explained. She was really nice and friendly and offered to give us a tour. We found a seat in the newly refurbished seating areas, the whole pub was really clean which was great and the decor was quite warm and comfortable. 

Clearly all of the staff hadn’t been informed of why we were there as a waitress just treated us like ‘normal’ customers and told us to order at the bar and waved in the general direction of the cutlery, which was quite stand-offish. When she’d obviously been told that we were there to review them she was immediately friendlier and attentive which makes me doubt her general customer service skills. She should treat every customer like that in my opinion, not just when she knows she’s being watched. As I’ve was a waitress myself for nearly 5 years at an upmarket country pub, I know how to serve people to the correct standard.

Now let’s get down to the food. We had starters, I had breaded mushrooms and Luke had Southern Fried Chicken Strips. The actual food was fine, the mushrooms and the chicken were both crispy and hot and tasted nice but the presentation was terrible. They both came plonked on a few iceberg lettuce leaves with a little plastic cup of dip. My dip was supposed to be BBQ and it was just chilli and chemicals. There was no BBQ about it at all. The other dip, sour cream, was fine, just standard sour cream.

For my main I had ‘Wiltshire’ Ham, Egg & Chips. I’d like to actually see the packet that the ham came out of because as I’m actually from Wiltshire, I doubt it is. The chips and egg were fine, but the ham was rubbery and really not nice. I had a few bites and I couldn’t eat anymore. Luke had a burger and the meat was fine but the pulled pork he had on top was watery and salty. They also brought us a pulled pork sandwich that they’d had on our order by mistake with curly fries, so I ate the curly fries and had a taste of the sandwich. The sandwich was essentially the burger without the meat in it. Not very original.

I won’t get down to the individual mistakes that were made with our order but they had to come back and confirm twice what we wanted and then it was still incorrect when it came. With our main courses, Luke ordered curly fries instead of normal chips and they came back to confirm with me and they still sent normal chips. This was annoying as he had to send it back and we had to wait to eat together.

Good things about them were that they offered free wifi, the pub was clean and the facilities were good. The staff were mostly friendly and they served the drinks in the respective glasses which we like. Luke had a San Miguel and it was served in a San Miguel glass which is great. Essentially, I would never eat there again but there was some good points about  the place. I’d have a drink in there and grab some chips but I wouldn’t purchase a meal from there. I wouldn’t even go and eat there for free.

We hate to be negative but this is a truthful review and you can see by the photographs the state of the food.