The Plough, Coton

On a spontaneous day out in Cambridge, we did a quick search for local gastro pubs (we had two little dogs with us), and came up with the Plough in Coton, which seemed to have a few good reviews.

What a horrible mistake. The decor and atmosphere were decidedly chain pub, so I braced myself for a menu of scampi and prawn cocktail. In fact, the menu does a decent impression of Pizza Express (which was a bit confusing given the number of families eating - perhaps there's a separate kids menu?). Prices were London levels, so we attempted to take the place seriously and ordered a couple of pizzas, some polenta chips with parmesan and a portobello mushroom pate with herbed bread, costing a total of �30. We should have listened to our inner Londoners, left the dogs in the car and shot off to an actual Pizza Express, who at least have a vague idea of what they're doing. What idiots.

When my partner came back from ordering at the bar, he was armed with tomato sauce and mayonnaise sachets. I defy you to find me a 'gastropub' inside the M25 which offers sauce sachets. They had also run out of knives, and told him that they 'couldn't do' starters because they'd never know when we'd finished them (we were sat in the garden). Thus all the food was served at once and I'd already started pulling faces.

I think the 'all food MUST be served at once' policy was quite smart of them, really, because had I seen the starters first, I'd have run for the hills, saving me �20.

Anyway, our pizzas turned up, looking exceptionally boring, and the knives were brought 10 mins later, when they were good and cold. The pizzas were on pretty decent dough bases, but that was it. Crap cheese, tomato sauce from a bucket, pre-formed meat and no flavour whatsoever (not even the msg laden sort). Any food which is improved by tomato sauce in a sachet is not worth bothering with, and this was a prime example.

But the pizzas were a delight when compared to the 'starter' and side dish that came along with them. The polenta chips were cut like house bricks and completely unseasoned. The cheese shavings, which had the texture and shine of packing materials, were of indeterminate age, no flavour and little flexibility. I could've used them as hairpins. If that was Parmesan, I'm President Obama. They were completely inedible and flavourless. Even the sachet sauce couldn't fix them.

But the crowning glory was the portobello mushroom pate with betroot something-or-other. It was accompanied by crostini from a bag, god knows how old, on top of which someone had enterprisingly sprinkled lumpily chopped parsley. The salad was three small handfuls (literally dumped as picked up) of iceberg, rocket and some darker leaf. No dressing. The pate, was more of a mousse (urgh! there is no more upsetting texture unless you're in a very expensive restaurant), obviously spooned out of another catering size bucket. Rank is the only word I can offer. And the beetroot had long ago stopped being beetroot and become something altogether more upsetting. I bravely squashed some onto a 'crostini' and was rewarded with a taste that was exactly how nasty pub toilets smell. I fed it to the dog and she enjoyed it a lot. But then she also likes to eat cat poo, so you can see the appeal. Having grown up in a vegetarian household, I know that this dish was deeply, deeply wrong.

This meal would have been shocking for �15. But to be charged �30 for some provincial atrocity is just horrifying. It's not a gastro pub, and they should be ashamed to call themselves one. I don't think they've ever been to a gastro pub. I doubt the chef has ever been allowed to go anywhere but Bookers. If it was bought by Wetherspoons this place would experience a sharp upturn in the quality and value for money of their food, and that's really saying something. I had to be restrained by my partner from making an enormous scene and demanding our money back. So instead I'm going to write this place up everywhere I can online so that no-one else unwittingly wanders in to get robbed.

1 Aug 2010 11:21