This is a nice country pub with low ceilings, an open fire and generally a good traditional pub feeling though it is really more of a restaurant than a pub.
We were a little underwhelmed by the size of the portions and the quality of some of the produce left a little to be desired.
For starters I had seared king scallops with slow roast belly pork and Braeburn apple and mustard dressing. It was very nice but I got only 4 scallops
and a tiny piece of pork, no more than one mouthful. There was also loads of dressing poured on but no way of mopping it up so had to get an extra portion
of garlic bread. Roy and Martin had Tomato and basil soup which was the soup of the day and they said the portions were adequate and it came in small high
bowls rather than British soup bowls which is good. Debbie had the forest and flat mushrooms in white wine and herb cream with crispy bacon and toast.
The bacon was just a standard rasher and it was not smoked. She said the size of the portion was reasonable and it was quite a good starter.
Mains is I think where the real problem with portion size and quality came. I had venison steaks which came with caramelised onion gravy, a flat mushroom,
A plumb tomato and steak chips
Usually the venison would be served with a red wine sauce or perhaps a juniper berry sauce but the gravy here turned out to be no better than Bisto onion
gravy, a real disappointment. The Venison was well cooked and there was a reasonable amount of it and on the table they had a sweet garlic and onion chutney
which I used all of to create a slightly more interesting sauce by mixing it with the gravy. The chips were soggy, slightly undercooked and almost certainly
frozen. The portion was not generous. For £16 this is not really good enough and if all I had to eat was a main course I would give it a 4.
Martin had the mixed grill which should have consisted of lamb cutlet, black pudding, white pudding, sweet cure Bacon, rump steak, sausage, egg,
tomato, flat mushroom, garden peas and chips. He’s not that big an eater and we thought that if this meal was as good as advertised, he would probably
be overfaced and need to share his food. as it turned out he had no problem getting it down. The black and white pudding was no better than average and
there was one thin slice of each. The lamb cutlet was mainly bone and the steak was chopped up into little pieces and dotted about on the plate. The amount of each ingredient was rather small and the chips were of course the same as mine.
Roy had the Shropshire chicken which was a chicken breast stuffed with Shropshire blue cheese, spinach and fig on roasted route vegetable risotto. He said
it tasted good but the portion was tiny.
Debbie had the Sole and smoked salmon roulade on buttered wilted spinach, samphire and baby potatoes with white wine and dill cream. She also said her
food was nice and well cooked but the portion was tiny.
As I have often said, I do hate the practice of selling meals in a restaurant and then making people purchase extra side dishes for exorbitant prices.
It’s far better to quote a price and then give people a choice of a couple of side dishes from a list that are bundled in with the price.
Presentation generally seemed to be more important than ensuring that people got value for money. I do accept that presentation does matter but at the
end of the day you are eating the meal not keeping it for posterity in a glass cabinet. Decent restaurants look after the eyes but consider the belly first!
The puddings fared rather better on the whole. Roy and martin had Apple, pear and sultana crumble. This was described as being ideal for sharing but they
said they got a decent portion of it though it was still really only a generous portion for one.
Debbie had the cheese board. . It was supposed to consist of local cheddar, brie and stilton served with celery, chutney and Bath Oliver biscuits.
Amusingly, the stilton was not available because it had gone mouldy but Debbie was given a choice of which cheese to have as an extra. I have never heard
of bath Oliver biscuits but they turned out to be a bit like Cornish wafers. These have a slightly soggy consistency and would not be my choice of biscuit.
Only having one kind of biscuit is also rather lacking in imagination. She said the portion size was quite reasonable.
Before the meal, I joked about the possibility of having the chocolate trio. This cost almost twice as much as the other puddings and was meant to be for
sharing. Oh dear. It was lightweight!!
It consisted of Double chocolate torte, which turned out to be chocolate flavoured clotted cream with a thin layer of sponge at the bottom, giant profiterole
which was rather dry with a little cream in it and a chocolate brownie which was a touch dry but the richest part of the pudding. This was for me a real
disappointment and I heartily wish I had gone for one of the ordinary puddings, the raspberry crème brulee perhaps.
This eatery is a pub and the drinks are well kept and there is a decent range of real ales and wines. 2 of us had pints of St Austell tribute ale which was very well kept.
We also had a bottle of rose which was an Italian merlet. It was fairly dry but fruity and for £10.75 a bottle it was well worth the money.
2 of us went for liqueur coffees and these were a real disappointment. The coffee was low quality instant coffee and there was no cream. Measures of spirit
seemed to be very minimal and I even wondered if my Irish coffee contained real whisky at all or just some kind of syrup or essence. Debbie had a brandy
coffee and she seemed no more impressed than I was.
Staff were generally friendly and reasonably helpful but the service was rather slow considering how quiet the restaurant was. There were other people
eating for sure but it was not crammed full.
Over all then our view of the food was that, with the exception of the chips and the way in which the venison was served, it was well cooked though portion
size was underwhelming to say the least with emphasis put on presentation at the expense of the actual eating experience. It should be possible to do rather
better than this for the money. The bill for 4 of us came to £129.00 including drinks. Drinks were generally well priced and of high quality but avoid the
liqueur coffee. The unanimously agreed mark was 6 out of 10 though looking back on the experience over all this could be a touch generous.
for more info including menus visit
http://www.vintageinn.co.uk/thesaintgeorgeanddragonclystsaintgeorge/
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