The Bell Inn, Godstone

My husband and I had eaten at the Bell during Sunday lunch a few months ago and at that time we found the food and service pretty good. So we thought we'd book a table for the evening and expected the same standard as we'd previously experienced.....How disappointing. The place was buzzing, but it would have been nice if the food and service was as interesting!
We ordered a bottle of Champagne and were asked if we wanted to drink it straight away - as we already had drinks we said we would wait...our waitress seemed rather perturbed that an ice bucket was required (shouldn't Champagne or white wine for that matter always come with an ice bucket?? Call me old fashioned!!). My husband had the scallops - they looked edible and by all accounts were ok. Unfortunately I'd drawn the short straw and had ordered the Chicken parfait - it was a slab which appeared almost a foot in dimension - rather vulgar and for only one person, far too much for any ones appetite.
Needless to say most of my first course was left to provide space for the main - I had high hopes that my grilled salmon and my husbands steak would be worth waiting for. (I should add here that although the place was heaving, we didn't have to wait very long between courses at all....perhaps this was one of the faults of the food - I'm sure I've waited longer in a fast food chain).
Our main courses arrived. Where my chicken parfait took up most of the plate, I can't say the same for my Salmon, dry and anaemic chips and shrivelled watercress. The Salmon was well and truly singed - the best thing about it was the 'crispy' skin. My green salad was substituted for a caesar...and the request for the green salad took three requests with three separate waitresses. My husband endured similar confusion over his onion relish, brandy and pepper corn sauce and a red and yellow salsa. When asked after the missing onion relish, he was informed that the salsa was it.
Thank goodness for the ice bucket - at least the Champagne stayed chilled and it certainly helped with our mood...the faults were stacking up.
We decided to give the desserts a go....surely our luck would improve at this stage. My husband ordered the sticky toffee pudding which was pretty good. Credit where credit's due I always say. My Tirimasu which was part of the specials was certainly special, but for all the wrong reasons. It balanced in vulgarity with the chicken parfait I had been presented with earlier - A huge plop of slop (it's taste resembling something like the well known Italian dessert) - but the appearance was sickening, virtually sickening and then covered with chocolate sauce??
Needless to say we won't be going back in a hurry and we won't be singing it's praises to friends and family. Perhaps the Bell has started to sit on it's laurels - but it might be time to take stock and realise that getting customers in and out of the door as quickly as possible should be left to the professionals, i.e. Burger King and McDonalds.

16 Mar 2008 22:47