The Shy Horse, Chessington

I went to this pub on Saturday 1st November 2008. It was the worst visit I have made to any pub.

My husband and I run pubs and restaurants and this shocked us both! Our food took ages to come even though we ordered very quickly and there were not that many people in the place. My chicken Forestiere was burnt and well over done to the extent that I could not cut the bottom breast. I sent it back. 20 minutes later I got a replacement and the chicken was great.....but I could not cut the mushrooms in the sauce with my knife or teeth, so ended up just having the sauce with the chicken and leaving the mushrooms! I was too hungry to return it and wait even longer.

Then I went to the toilet to change my daughter and the fan in the disabled toilet is really LOUD and scared my daughter who lay there the whole time I was changing her with her hands over her ears terrified!! But it was clean.

My dessert was the profiteroles. The cream in the middle tasted watery and in my opinion was off, but they claim it was flavoured with white chocolate! This was not mentioned on the menu and I am still not convinced! My trip to the toilets left me reeling! Out of 4 cubicles I could only use 1 as the others were either "stained" had a flood NOT from the toilet or there was no loo roll. When this was mentioned to the staff, they lady claimed that this could only have happened since they had been open! But they must have really messy customers as they had only been open for 1 and a half hours!

This said there were not enough staff front of house to cope with the number of customers they had. Thoroughly disappointed as we had been recommended to go there.

4 Nov 2008 21:38

The Shy Horse, Chessington

My husband and I along with our 19mth old went here for lunch on 15th Feb 2008, wish we hadn't.

The young man behind the bar was very pleasant and cheerful, if a little scruffy though nothing compared to the girl with the ponytail. Obviously new, he didn't know where the disabled toilet key was and pony tail girl was reluctantly helpful to both him and myself and couldn't even raise a smile.

The disabled toilet has the noisiest extractor fan I have ever heard. That combined with the fact that there was NO heating in there made my daughter shake as I put her on the highest change table I have ever used! She was terrified of the noise the fan made and clung to me when I could eventually get her down from it. As a 19mth old, she is not scared of loud noises as we are a noisy household, but I never want to see that look of fear in her eyes again.

Now the food! The starter of breaded mushrooms was fantastic and my husband and I should have had that each with chips instead of sharing one and making the mistake of having a main course too. The chef was yelling for service (we were close to the kitchen and could hear), my beef and mush Guinness pie was burnt on top, and the mash had a skin over it. You can't really muck up the burger my husband had so that was passable, just. The first thing I pulled from my pie after removing the top was a lump of fat and the gravy, far from being rich and flavour-some as you would expect, was just seasoned with pepper.

I know more than most of the restrictions placed on pubs as to how you can order your pre-prepared food from (as it was ready-made make no mistake) but the tasting the food before you serve it is usually recommended.

Also there was no member of management visible and as for being offered "teas, coffees or desserts?" when I have just been given my main course......well, lack of training is what springs to mind. Also being ignored when we were finished our meals and walked out, I know for a fact that that is not in the training programme given to all employees of Mitchells & Butler staff.

17 Feb 2008 17:44