Festive lunch at Washingborough Hall

bar

menu

dining room

When you book for lunch, asked to wait half an hour before being invited into the dining room, then find no one else there, maybe this should send warning bells clanging.

celeriac and pear soup

Celeriac and pear soup, strange mix, was excellent. Creamy, bits of pear, slightly sweet, something strange floating on top that was like chewing on bits of paper.

The same could not be said of the main course, roast turkey with the usual trimmings. The turkey appeared to be hotted up slices of somewhat inferior turkey,  undercooked carrots and brussel sprouts, a red mush, difficult to know what it was, maybe red cabbage but very sweet, whatever it was, in contrast with the brussels and carrots overcooked, the roast potatoes surprisingly were excellent.

I would have expected a quality bird, roasted, carved.

Christmas pudding

Christmas pudding served with white sauce. Not a lot can go wrong with a Christmas pudding, so long as buy quality or make with quality ingredients.

All servings, the portion size was generous.

tea and fudge

Pot of tea served with a piece of fudge.

Water served in a glass bottle. The wire holding the top in place was rusty.

Unpleasant loud music blaring out in the dinning room during the meal.

The table rickety. It needed a beer mat or two under one of the table legs to stabilise the table.

Waitress doubled as a receptionist.

Locally sourced ingredients but without saying from where, a meaningless statement. Contrast with Stokes on High Bridge in Lincoln, where locally sourced and they say from where.

Washingborough Hall is a Grade II listed building, a Georgian manor house,  set in its own grounds.

It is unfortunate the food served does not live up to the promise of the surroundings.

But even the building has been ruined. An appalling extension has been stuck on the side, out of character with the building. Begs the question how it ever managed to obtain planning consent.

Washingborough Hall has a Certificate of Excellence from TripAdvisor.  It is not deserved.

Failure to address fake reviews, issuing of Certificate of Excellence when not deserved, TripAdvisor is losing all credibility.

Washingborough Hall is located half way up Church Hill in the cliff-edge village of Washingborough, not far from Lincoln.

• PHOTOS Festive lunch at Washingborough Hall

Christmas lunch from Cook

frozen vegetables

unappetising cooked chicken, more stuffing than chicken

Cook Christmas lunch

Christmas lunch ordered from Cook. To make up the order, to meet minimum requirement on delivery, a Christmas cake added to the order.

Ordering from Cook on-line a nightmare. Difficult to imagine a worse on-line system. Eventually gave up, and ordered by phone.

The order arrived frozen, packed with half a dozen wedges of ice to keep it frozen.

Having had Christmas lunch at Washingborough Hall, a couple days before Christmas, decided to save the Cook Christmas lunch until New Year Day. The chicken put in the fridge a couple of days before to defrost, the vegetables left in the freezer until required (this proved to be a big mistake).

The chicken was poor quality, chicken being a slight exaggeration, it was strips of chicken breast wrapped around a large lump of stuffing, to make it appear larger than it actually was, with a few strips of bacon then wrapped around the chicken (or what masqueraded as a chicken).

The chicken when cooked, was dry and about as tasteless as eating cardboard. One reason for the chicken being dry and tasteless was that it was skinned.

A whole, roasted chicken, would have been far better value, and far tastier.

The vegetables were cold. Put back in the oven for several minutes, were at least hot, but that was the best thing that could be said for them.

Freshly cooked vegetables would have been far better and a fraction of the price.

It was a big mistake to leave the vegetables in the freezer. They should have been thawed and cooked half the cooking time.

Imagine a pub serving hotted up white van chiller food and you get the idea. If a pub served food as bad as this, they would deserve to be put out of business.

Very poor value and very poor quality.

The only good part of the meal was an excellent bottle of red wine courtesy of Nicolas of Nicolas Tavern.

Cyprus red wine courtesy of Nicolas of Nicolas Tavern

Christmas lunch at Washingborough Hall

Washingborough Hall

dining room

Christmas crackers

roast pork and vegetables

Christmas decorations

tea and fudge

Trying to make head or tail of the brochure on-line for Washingborough Hall a nightmare.

Christmas dinner on Christmas Day ludicrously expensive. Eventually decided on Christmas lunch, a couple of days before Christmas Day.

We could have walked there, but it was raining, windy, and a storm was about to hit.

Washingborough Hall was deserted, where was everyone, it was like entering the Mary Celeste.

Eventually a receptionist appeared. But where were the guests, where were the diners? We had the Hall to ourselves.

A lovely log fire burning in the reception area.

We were booked for 1pm, we arrived a little before. A long wait, 30-45 minutes before we were escorted to a table. Quite what the long wait was for, no explanation or apology. Maybe they were hoping, praying, more diners would appear.

The delay did not matter, we were in no hurry, we were happy to sit and relax in the main foyer, have a wander around. But having booked for 1pm, we should have been extended the common courtesy of an apology and an explanation.

We did not like the allocated table. Asking to be relocated to another table, did not go down too well. We were the only ones there.

For starters, delicious celery soup, also a choice of different bread.

Main course braised and roasted belly of pork. I assume slow roasted, but it did not say. Not very festive, but I did not fancy slices of turkey, which were probably hotted up, not carved off a roast turkey.

The pork was balancing on top off mashed potato and cooked apple. Why not at the side? The crackling on the pork was not crispy. No gravy bowl, nor were we asked did we require gravy.

The mashed potato was not plain mash, it was mixed with something. What I do not know, as it did not say, but it was delicious. A side bowl of various vegetables, as with the roast pork, delicious.

For sweet, Christmas pudding with rum sauce. The Christmas pudding was not very good, tasted like a cheap supermarket pudding.

Finished off with tea and fudge.

Apart from being met and taken to our table, throughout, served by a lovely waitress called Annie.

Synchronicity: In the bar cum lounge, books, whether for display or reading I do not know. Only yesterday or the day before, I was wanting Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I found a special 25th anniversary edition with introduction by the author Robert M Pirsig. I must admit, I prefer the original cover. This I liberated, but will drop off a couple of books.

Many hotels, coffee bars, now operate BookCrossing, drop off, pick up books, basically book swapping.

Washingborough Hall, is a Grade II listed early Georgian Manor House , set in its own grounds, in the village of Washingborough, a few miles outside of Lincoln. Their use of twitter, a classic example of how not to use social media.