The Bristol/Cheltenham restaurant review thread

[PokerWoody]

As there were a few different places being mentioned in the Sunday Roast thread I thought it might be a good idea to have a restaurant review thread. So if you go out for a meal maybe post a little bit in here about your experience.

I think it would be good if each review contained the following:

• Price - I think price of meal for 2 and a bottle of wine would be good. But so long as you specify what was included in the price and how many people for anything's okay.
• Location - So we know where to go if we like what we read!
• Style - Sort of place it is - Carvery/Gastro/Pub/Hotel/Whatever
• Rating - Out of 10
• Review - Just quick summary so we can see what made your score so good or bad

I know i'm always looking for new places to go and eat (or possibly avoid) so hopefully this thread can be of some interest to the Bristol/Cheltenham folk on these boards

[PokerWoody]

Robin Hoods Retreat

Price: 2 courses and bottle of wine for 2: £50

Location: google map

Style: Gastro Pub

Rating: (5.5/10)

Review: Firstly I think it’s important to note that we went on a bank holiday Monday. I think bank holidays are never very good days to visit restaurants in general and this was reflected by being offered a ‘bank holiday menu’ rather then being able to choose from the standard menu on the black board. The cost was £14.50 for 2 courses or £18.00 for 3, which is pretty reasonable as main courses are normally in the £12-£16 range.

Starter – There wasn’t much choice here. Either Foccacia with Lemon and Chilli Feta, Foccacia with mixed olives or Foccacia with Cray fish and something or other. We shared the Lemon and Chilli and it was kind of okay. Bit disappointing but nice enough.

Main – We had the fillet steak and the Shoulder of lamb. The main problem we both hand with the mains was that there was just too much richness every where. It’s kinda like they have tried to make every element as flavoursome as possible but neglected the effect that has on the overall dish. The vegetables for example are cooked in a very rich garlic butter so they end up indistinguishable from one another - they all just taste like garlic! Also, my ‘hand made chips’ really weren’t very good. Firstly I think of hand made chips as being quite chunky, where as what I got were fries. Now I don’t mind fries, in fact I really quite like them, but had they been called ‘hand made fries’ I think my expectation would have been better managed. But either way, they were overcooked which meant there was no potato left, just crunchy over-fried fries. The steak was very good though as was the lamb, but we both felt each dish should have been better.

Desert – Again the choice was limited but this is because we are not eating off there normal menu. We had a passion fruit fool with shortbread and this was easily the best of the courses. Having had a sneak at the desert menu before when choosing our first courses I thought we’d end up getting the cheese, but the mains were just too rich to follow with cheese and the fool really hit the mark.

So overall not great for the sort of price you are paying. Some of this was down to the limited menu and it being a bank holiday, but then much of the menu is taken from the main menu anyway.

Really nice place to go for a drink, I do really like this pub for a quiet drink, but I won’t be rushing back to dine there - there are plenty of much better places to go for better food at a similar price.

[Dice Man]

Browns (in Bristol)

Price: Estimate of 3 courses for one, no drinks: £20-30
Location: About 20 seconds up the road from Wills Memorial Hall in prime location with lots of seats outside.

Style: Hard to say, the menu is quite massive and as far as I know never changes. The place looks like its modeled on a Parisian cafe and gets a lot of custom.

Rating: (4/10)

Review: I went here over a year ago so my memory isn't that good. I felt that the portions weren't quite the right size for their quality. i.e. you either expect better or bigger -slightly.
Starter – Can't remember really. Not much choice and ended up having a blandish salad. I was on a table of about 20 people and all the starters looked pretty similar.
Main – I'd been looking forward to this as I'd seen the menu on the internet, here (they actually have a 2 course for £10.95/£12.95 which actually looks half-decent value here). Anyway the menu was virtually identical then except they had a meal of Lobster, Steak & Chips, which was something like £19. I thought, "Well I haven't been to a restaurant for like a year, and I've never had lobster, so fuck it, I'll have that." I just felt in the end that there wasn't enough lobster or steak and too many chips to fill up the meal. It came with one of those buttery sauces so tasted good though. Looking around the rest of the table I felt the meals were all a bit small.
Desert – We left before desert. That makes it sound like everybody thought the place was shit, but I wouldn't go that far. I can imagine if it had been great we would have stayed for desert, but it fell slightly short of great.

I think maybe there was an expectation that there would be more food because it wasn't too much like a formal restaurant where you're more there to taste something great than fill you up. It looks on the outside like a bit of a bistro, but the food falls a bit short of being both hearty and delicious IMO.

[PokerWoody]

Hotel Du Vin – Cheltenham

Price: 2 course meal and a bottle of wine for 2 - £29 (special offer, not typical of the full menu - see here)

Location: google map

Style: Hotel / Modern

Rating: 8.5/10

Review: There are just too many nice things to say about this place. The building and location are very in keeping with Cheltenham’s regency style, you almost feel as if you are from a different age as you step up to the entrance. There is a nice spacious area to sit down and have a drink/eat some nibbles/peruse the menu prior to being taken to your seat. The menu is restricted but the selection isn’t terrible and the house wine was very nice too. The main meals did generally require a side dish of Veg for an extra £3 and in addition to that we each splashed out the extra £6.50 for a desert each.

The service was really first class as you might expect, but the real gem is the value for money. Yes you do get a restricted menu and yes £29 is not the full story as you will need to probably pay for a side dish and you’ll be hard pushed to refuse a desert. But even after you have added these extra’s on, it still only comes to £20 per person and for what you get, I think that is very hard to beat.

Hotel Du Vin Bristol to follow...

[TylerStroud]

McDonalds (in Bristol)

Price: Estimate of 3 courses for one, with drink: £3.49
Location: In the City Centre by the Mercure.

Style: Deadly over a period of sustained exposure.

Rating: (2/10)

Review: Do you want fries with that?

[PokerWoody]

Mango's sounds really awesome. With a name like that how could they possibly go wrong? Will definitely check it out if I'm in Cheltenham one evening and looking for somewhere to eat.

A guy at work owns a restaurant called Mango's in Gloucester which does Thai food. Mango's obv a popular name up there!

[Dice Man]

lamb: not too great
vegetarian curry: abundant
10% service charge: standard