"Before I start I 'd like to say I have eaten at the Coach Horses a number of times before and had always enjoyed their food but had not tried their Sunday lunch. Unfortunately, on Sunday 2nd May we chose to try it for the first time, and definitely the last. I 'm generally fairly forgiving with food and it doesn 't have to be top notch to satisfy me, but it does have to be decent and edible. I chose the roast sirloin of beef. I was presented with a large plate containing two slices of meat with a Yorkshire pudding, mash, Roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots and cabbage, with plenty of gravy (which I usually don 't get enough of but there was plenty here). Looking at the plate, it seemed like this would be an enjoyable dinner. As I started to (try to) cut one of the slices of beef, it became evident that under the gravy these slices of beef were riddled with gristle and fat. The meat was difficult to cut and after separating the meat form the gristle, there was probably only about half left. However, the meat that was left was extremely chewy and tough. I tried to persevere with it but had to eventually give up and left about a quarter of it with the pile of offcuts already on the side of my plate. But this isn 't the end of my bad experience. The parsnips were so undercooked I couldn 't get my knife through them so they were basically inedible. The roast potatoes were nice and crispy, but on eating them it became obvious the kitchen had cheated somewhat and deep fried them to make them crispy I reckon. You could taste the fat which gets soaked up in the deep frying process (I apologise to the kitchen if I 'm wrong but this is how they seemed). The Yorkshire pudding was lovely and the rest of the veg was ok, bit overall this was the most disappointing Sunday lunch I think I 've ever had. When the waitress asked how our meal was, I was honest and said it was disappointing, explaining that the beef was extremely tough and far too gristly and chewy. She said she was sorry and scuttled off I assumed to the kitchen. She didn 't re-appear though, and about 5 minutes later another waitress asked if we would like anything else. We were on our way somewhere and had cake to deliver which we knew we would be served a slice of, so we declined sweet and asked for the bill, which was duly delivered with no offering of explanation, apology or disappointment consolation discount. I wasn 't looking for anything to be knocked off the bill, but it seems that they didn 't know how to handle even a polite complaint like this one. Customers won 't come back without some recognition of their dissatisfaction. Even offering some consolation like would you like a pudding or coffee on us , even though we would not have taken it up, it would have been enough to satisfy that our dining disappointment had been acknowledged. Sorry Coach Horses, you’ve lost a couple of customers here, I don’t think we’ll be back again."
