As a birthday treat the good lady booked us a table at The Royal Oak in Brandon Warwickshire, the date of our visit was Wednesday 28th June 2023,
It was our first ever visit to this particular establishment after rave reviews from a friend and...other social media sites, on first impressions I thought what a lovely country public house situated in a quiet village on the A428,
how wrong was I, it’s a busy old pub and obviously it’s reputation attracts people from far and wide.
We were greeted at the bar by the lady serving, she was quite pleasant but seemed somewhat more interested in the dual of who was going to work which bar with her colleague , “I honestly don’t mind” they both kept saying, well I honestly do mind and is there any remote possibility we could get a drink. After the debate was resolved the bar tender asked us once more what we would like to drink. We were shown to our quiet table, well that’s what we requested. Well it didn’t matter what we requested you were never going to get a quiet table in this establishment. (Very quickly, what is it with large groups of diners that they seem to think that the more of them there is the louder they can be?, the 12 at the top of the steps seemed to think so, if we had booked a quiet table in Rugby we would of still heard them.)
Ordered our food, I always find it’s nicer to have the same person serve you throughout the evening rather than have different waiting staff.
Our starter was the Camembert, we agreed to share one with some extra bread and some onion rings, I am not going to dwell on the starter just to say what we ordered was absolutely spot on for us and compliments goes to the chef as everything for the starter was amazing and hot.
Onto the mains, the good lady ordered the lasagne with a salad, I ordered the sirloin steak, well it was my birthday after all. The mains arrived. . . . let’s start with the good lady’s dinner, the lasagne was beautifully cooked, it had no burnt bits, it was piping hot and tasted absolutely lovely, (she let me try a bit) . I would go as far as to say that the lasagne was most likely made right there in the The Royal Oaks kitchen and if it wasn’t whatever you do don’t lose the suppliers number. The salad was not a salad, it all come out of a bag labelled mixed leafs, that’s not a salad and as for the coleslaw dolloped on the plate, well that should of been in a separate pot, the heat of the lovely lasagne basically meant that the coleslaw was warm which isn’t a very nice taste believe me. Moving onto my main. . . . I ordered a sirloin steak with new potatoes and upon arrival it looked absolutely lovely, cooked beautifully and I was impressed with the machete I was given instead of a steak knife, once I started to cut into the steak I then I realised the reason for the machete, a standard steak knife would never of gone through that fatty steak.
It stated on the menu that the meat was a 28 day old steak, I don’t care if it’s had a holiday in Corfu all I wanted was a steak I could chew.
Regarding the rest of what was on my plate can I say I am deeply grateful to The Royal Oak for my half of a tomato (who got the other half?) the one mushroom and the 4 tiny new potatoes. I ordered a large courvoisier and lemonade, as soon as the glass landed on the table I knew it wasn’t courvoisier by the colour, what I had been given was a cheap french brandy that had no better purpose in life than to be used in cooking, it’s horribly and not fit for human consumption. What should of happened is that a member of staff should of returned to the table and explained that there was unfortunately no courvoisier, however we do have a Martells, I probably would of had a gin and tonic instead. I will share this quickly with you . . The people behind us asked for the bill, off the young lady went to get their bill.
30 seconds later she is bringing dinners out of the kitchen, when somebody asks you for their bill it’s because they are ready to leave, they then got up after waiting for the non arrival of the bill but obviously with the intention of paying the bill at the bar, as they got up she finally arrived with the bill and the entire transaction took place right next to our table whilst we were eating our dinners, it’s not nice having complete strangers staring at you and your food when your trying to eat.
Onto desserts, knickerbocker glory was lovely, plenty of it and well constructed, the good lady had 3 scoops of toffee and banana ice cream and absolutely loved it.
We noticed that throughout the evening all the staff have all got one thing in common, they all seem to have this thing about dropping things off at your table and within a second they all run off quicker than a greyhound, spend a few seconds making sure everything is okay. We appreciate how hard some staff work in the hospitality and catering trade and personally I know it’s hard work, as a son of a landlady and a landlord for over 30 years I know a few thing about pubs, food and hospitality. I would always tip the staff but on this occasion nobody stood out and nobody for us went above and beyond so unfortunately I didn’t give anyone a tip.
Summary. . . . it’s a nice pub, it’s always busy and loud, the food overall is good, avoid the steaks, have the lasagne, the french brandy is awful, the staff need to talk to the diners and stop rushing around, would we go back?
It’s a yes, now knowing what we know about the The Royal Oak is all about we know what to expect and it doesn’t scare us away.More
