"My partner and I visited in May, a birthday treat for us both and the first time we had been out without our 1 year old. We had heard great things about The White Hart since it had been taken over and we wanted to indulge. We ordered a number of items off the starter menu, opting for a Tapas vibe: dirty nachos, halloumi fries, pork belly bites, brie bites, mac cheese, calamari. I then had the sticky BBQ ribs and my partner ordered the rib eye steak medium rare with peppercorn sauce. The guy working the bar and taking our order was lovely, can 't fault him. We sat in the courtyard which was nice and quiet. Food arrived quickly and was piping hot. I wouldn 't have complained about the starters, but events that followed upon us paying had me changing my mind. The pork belly bites were so dry they sucked all moisture from your mouth. The calamari was stringy and the batter unseasoned. The mac cheese had zero flavour. Brie bites were lovely, nachos had plenty of cheese and halloumi fries, according to my partner, were nice. Then our main arrived. I was too full to even contemplate eating my ribs, but they looked good and I 'm sure I would have enjoyed them. My partners steak, on the other hand, was not medium rare, it was blue it was cold inside. He decided he wasn 't going to bother the kitchen for a replacement because he was full as well and would just eat his chips and two small bites of the steak that were cooked at the edges. When our server came to collect our plates we mentioned that the steak was well undercooked and we asked if we could have that taken off the bill because it was inedible. He promptly went and told the kitchen and the head of service, who we then heard shouting at the chef why have you served this? It 's blue, he asked for medium rare. Upon walking to the bar to pay my partner stopped at the kitchen to have a chat with the chef who was initially very apologetic and admitted that it was undercooked. He then did a total u turn out of nowhere and started saying that there was no problem with the steak, he didn 't agree and we couldn 't tell him, with his years of experience in the kitchen, that this was undercooked. At this point the head of service got involved and said she would 'handle ' it. Her idea of 'handling ' it was to shout at us that we were unreasonable and tell us she has 20+ years as a chef and that it 's ridiculous for us to tell her what is and isn 't cooked she didn 't take kindly to being told that we have been eating for 30+ years and know when food is cooked or not...She went on to accuse us of just waking up in the morning and thinking 'I know, I want to go to Yetminster and find a nice quiet pub and cause trouble '. I know that happens, some people have nothing better to do, but after spending over a year looking after my little one day in day out with no break, the idea of going out to 'cause trouble ' was the last thing on my mind. We told the lady that we don 't wish to argue with her, but the food was poor and we don 't believe we should be asked to pay for something that was inedible. We weren 't asking for the whole meal to be wiped off the bill, just remove the cost of the steak. She had it wrapped there on the bar and tried telling us it had been half eaten she had in fact disposed of the two large raw chunks that had been cut off and left on the plate with it. We asked the guy standing next to us at the bar if it looks cooked, if he would eat it. His response was it looks like gristle. Eventually, the lady confirmed that the steak itself costs about a tenner, so we said we will deduct £10 from the bill. She then went on a high and mighty rant about how she will pay the final £10 out of her own pocket. If that 's what you want to do then do it, by that point we had zero sympathy and it was laughable that she was trying to make us feel bad like that after spending the last 10 minutes shouting at us and throwing accusations around. Like I said, we would have let it all go, they would have had a nice review, but instead the staff here were nasty, rude and argumentative. Avoid."
West Dorset
