The Queen Inn, Winchester

DO NOT EAT HERE.
[in brief]
The food was overcooked, served cold, far to salty, all seemed to be from pre-packaged or frozen, and all of very low quality.
The only thing worse than the food was the service.
The bar maid began as rude a surely, but quickly descended into aggressive when we asked for clean cutlery.

[Full]
We were attracted to the pub, while on a walk, by its beer garden an promise of food.
When we were eventually served at the bar, the bar maid having ignored our presence for several minutes eventually snapping at me for my order when I began to pet the dog laying on the counter, we found that, even though it was only mid day, most of the items on the menu were unavailable.
The bar maid seemed to take our wanting to order food they had listed on the menu, but not available to serve, as some form of personal malice and responded very aggressively. I first put this down to 'it must be a busy day'.
Trying to pay by card the bar maid merely pointed at a piece of wood at the corner of the bar, behind some taps. Walking over to it I found it was a sign, facing away from us, telling that they were unable to take payment on card. Why she was not able to simply tell this herself is beyond me.

Most of the pub and the beer garden were deserted, and I can understand why as it took an hour for the first meal to arrive and another 30 minutes for the remainder, even though they were ordered at the same time.
There was no cutlery available, when I asked the bar maid for some she positively glared at me as though I was the most unreasonable person and stormed into the kitchen, she finally returned with some cutlery, which was still dirty, as I did not intend to eat my dinner with the remains of someone else's dried to the fork I asked for it to be cleaned.
This was obviously a selfish indulgence to far on my part and the bar maid slammed the pint she was pouring down on to the counter so hard that she spilt it.

The dinner, when it did finally arrive, and we were actually equipped with clean means of eating it was truly awful.
I find it hard to describe how utterly vile it was in every possible way, taste, texture and appearance.
The vegetables, which were obviously from frozen and reheated, were cold to the touch, flaccid and far to salty.
The beef was tough and the gravy was, again, very salty.
The sausages were, thankfully and somewhat surprisingly given the quality of the rest, cooked all the way through at least.

There was a good selection of ales, however that is not enough to redeem it from the ignorant, ill-mannered, crass, rude and eventually openly aggressive staff and absolutely appalling food.

3 May 2009 19:18