The Talbot Hotel Eatery & Coffee House, Oundle

"Ride manager after terrible food"

To start, the 2 waitresses were lovely, starters were fine, 2 steaks ordered for mains, one medium, one medium rare, these were £30 8oz sirloins, they came out very thin with a bowl of salad and a pot of chips, my chips were raw in the middle, rock hard and my medium steak was more than well done, dark brown and overcooked. The lovely Kerrie returned my plate to the kitchen and came back with another steak which was cooked as requested but was literally a plate of fat and sinew. I couldn’t cut through it even with the steak knife and there were white sinews running all the way through. Kerrie returned it to the kitchen again and then the manager came over and asked me what I want instead as ‘there is no point cooking you a 3rd steak as you won’t like it’. She then proceeded to tell me that she had tasted the steak and thought it was fine and I needed to choose something else. I explained that there is no way that steak was ok and to speak Kerrie who had agreed it was terrible. I said I didn’t want anything else as my husband had already finished his meal by the time they had brought the 2nd steak over so I certainly didn’t want to sit and wait for another and eat alone. The manager then spent the next 5 minutes saying it was my fault for not liking the first steak disregarding that it was overcooked and when we questioned what the cut was because it didn’t seem like sirloin she said she would find out but never came back with the info. As we had prepaid for a 3 course meal we ordered dessert and whilst eating she came over and said ‘is it ok?’ To which we replied yes they were very nice and she said ‘oh good, you have found something you like then?’ I then told her that I have never been spoken to so rudely by anyone anywhere in a restaurant she proceeded to say that it wasn’t her intention but still continued to tell me that it was my fault for not liking the steaks and maybe I should order something different in future. This was the last straw and we asked for the bill. Poor Kerrie was then tasked with presenting us with the bill which included the steak, nothing removed at all so I asked Kerrie to ask the manager to come back and speak to us. It took 10 mins and us asking 3 times, there was no one else left in the restaurant and there had only been 5 people altogether all night including us. When she finally returned I explained that it was unacceptable and she said ‘oh no, no, I have taken £50 off your bill you will see it at checkout’ now it is obvious she only did this after we asked to speak to her as she wouldn’t have sent the original bill over otherwise. It totally spoiled our meal, I could even deal with the issues with the steaks if it had been dealt with well but this manager was rude, accusatory and needs retraining if she is going to continue dealing front of house. It put such a dampener on the evening that we got up early and checked out without our prepaid for breakfast as we didn’t want to run the risk of having to deal with her again.

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