After a long and emotionally draining weekend at a family event, a two course meal and tea/coffee was booked at this hotel. Having attended a similar meal three years ago, we were looking forward to good things.

On the positive side the interiors of the function room are really lovely, heavy black curtains, black trimmed tablecloths, beautiful wallpaper here and there etc. The table settings looked lovely and everything very clean. Jugs of water with ice and slice lime and cranberry sauce on the table.

The negative side is unending:

30 minutes wait for starter to arrive, not worth the wait as the soup that did arrive was BURNT, it was so bad I couldn't stomach it.

After good 30 minutes again the main course of Beef started to arrive, plate by plate, with a good two minutes between each plate. After about 20 plates served the organiser of group realised that not only was the food FREEZING but even the plate was cold. All plates sent back and reheated. After all beef served they started on the Turkey and Ham.

The waiteress were that untrained they stood at the top of the room and shouted "beef" to which ever hand they saw first they rushed to that table. For that reason no table got served in succession. Manager was called and arrived with phone stuck to his ear and we saw him dash into the kitchen and arrive out with three plates and then disappear.

My Turkey and Ham was worst Iv ever tasted (and Iv had poor food before). It was like plastic, mashed potato was extremely over salted, lumpy and greyish looking, the carrot and turnip was chopped in large pieces and was hit and miss, one piece al dente, next piece pure mush which lead me to believe some of it was yesterday veg heated up. My plate and another plate at my table were missing the burnt dried up roast potato.

After about 20 minutes after watching waiteress running around finding teapots the tea/coffee arrived. The dinner plates weren't even collected and at this point I said to my waiteress how can we sort out cups when plates not collected. She pretended she didnt understand me and i had to collect five plates on my half of the table and place them in the center of the table as did the lady across from me. Both the tea and the coffee were disgusting.

The toilets were very nice but were never cleaned while we were there. The hand sink was the modern type that had the tap outside the sink itself which meant the granite work surface and the floor was soaking wet. It was made worse by the fact it took few minutes to figure out how the tap worked so your hand dripped water.

There was a function room bar but after a few drinks served the barperson disappear. The main bar was empty except for a middle aged couple who got two dinners at the bar, unhappy after an argument with the manager they left after tasting the dinner.

This manager later was seen dashing away in his car and the joke was "He was gone to the shop to get milk" as they ran out of it.

As I said I'v had poor food before and poor service but never had I had both together and at such a shocking degree.