The Lyttelton Arms - Dad's Birthday

This will just be a short little blog update as I've already done a blog post on the Lyttelton Arms a few weeks ago but unfortunately this time we were very disappointed...

THE LOOK 

As always the food was wonderfully presented. The Lyttelton Arms always puts so much effort into the presentation of their food. On our table we had a small buckets of nachos to nibble on while we decided. For my starter I had Scallops of the Day (£9.95) which were with pumpkin ravioli, butternut squash crisps and a white wine veloute. For my main i had 7oz Fillet Steak (£23.50) with roasted mushroom & caramelised shallot, béarnaise sauce and rosemary, tomato & garlic jelly, usually it comes with dauphinoise potatoes but after the disappointment last time I switched them for the twice cooked chunky chips! The sauce and jelly came in two little pans but they were quite difficult to use so I just tipped to sauces out! And finally there's my cocktail! Unfortunately I can't remember what it was called because the restaurant drinks menu isn't up to date with the online one so I can't check but it had whisky in it. Although it looks like it has a lot of ice in it, it was actually a pretty alright cocktail.

Rating: **** 

THE TASTE

I personally loved my starter but my dad and brother hated to pumpkin ravioli! They did have a surprisingly strong marzipan taste but when eaten with the veloute and crisps they combined perfectly! The scallops were also cooked to perfection! My steak was also delightful and cooked excellently (rare of course). The jelly and sauce were the ideal additions and swapping the dauphinoise potatoes for the chips was definitely a good idea! Personally I don't think that the mushroom and onion were necessary on the dish. 

Rating:****'

THE PLACE

This is where everything starts to go downhill.... 

Usually we have wonderful service here but this experience was just a disappointment from start to end. We had a drink at the bar before we went to our table and the barman got our order wrong and my mom, who is a diabetic, was given sweet instead of dry white wine. Once we sat at our table we were asked to order pretty much right away, despite only having had the menu for 2 minutes so we asked her to return later. Literally another 2 minutes later she was back so we had to order on the spot! Throughout the meal we kept trying to order drinks but all of a sudden no waiters were available... We kept getting told that they would send over the drinks waiter but no-one came! At the end of our meal we wanted to order dessert but yet again no-one was around so after at least 20 minutes of waiting we decided to leave and pick a dessert up on the way home. The waitress just gave a very half hearted apology but in the end she did discount our bill. It goes without saying that we wont be returning in a hurry.

Rating: **