The Old Bakery Restaurant With Rooms

Gent

Avoid at All Costs 16th August 2009

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I visited this restaurant in August 2009 with my partner and parents and after reading the reviews we were all expecting a nice experience. First of all let me say this is the first time I have felt impassioned enough to write a poor review on a website about anything. My job takes me all over the World and I have happily informed people of my positive experiences but avoided negativity. After this meal I felt so robbed I had to break my usual rules.
We sat in the back conservatory which was well designed but absolutely lacking in any atmosphere whatsoever. The staff were ok, if not a little sniffy and the manager/owner seemed very arrogant.
For starters I had the Carpaccio of Ostrich - I recently had this dish in Toulouse and for 5 euros I received around 25 slices, £9 here and I received a measly 5, a sprinkle of Parmesan shavings and a very bland cucumber salsa. The parmesan was a bizarre addition, completely ill matched and after eating my mouthful of ostrich I was left eating a plate of parmesan. A very poor starter.
Elsewhere 2 of my fellow diners had the Portobello Mushroom with goats cheese which to be fair was OK if not a little messy on the plate. The other diner had the salmon sashimi, seared tuna and scallop with wasabi ice cream. Sounds nice on paper, tasted bland on the plate. Salmon was low quality and tuna wasn't fresh enough. Wasabi ice cream had no kind of kick and tasted more like vanilla ice cream. This dish had such potential and yet failed on every level.
Not a great start but absolutely nothing compared to the disappointment that was to come when the Main Course arrived. Three of us had ordered what we felt was the signature dish of slow roasted baby pig. If I was to say this was the most disappointing meal I have ever had in my life it would be an understatement. It looked and tasted like last week’s Sunday lunch warmed up in the oven for 12 hours. The pork was dry and shredded, tasteless and tough. The vegetables had been roasted, burnt on the outside, rock hard on the inside. it is one of those situations when you’re just so hungry you eat it anyway but in hindsight I wish the 3 of us that had ordered it would have just sent it back. As it happens I think we all just wanted to get the experience over and get out the door. The diner not having the pig ordered the Fillet Tournedos of beef with blue cheese. The steak was bloody even though they had asked for medium but worst of all was that the huge slab of melted blue cheese almost completely took over the dish. This was an extremely poorly thought out dish, the kind of mistake an amateur chef makes. The dish was completely underwhelming and didn't work.
Final Bill arrived and came to over £150.
Anyway whoever gave this place good reviews or even one star/rosette deserves to be sacked. I am from London and dine out regularly and simply could not believe how bad this place was. Luckily I didn’t let it ruin my experience of Lincoln but you have to question the area if this place is held in such high regard locally.
As an aside we mentioned we were a bit disappointed to the manager who completely dismissed us if he hadn't heard what we had said and went on to say "We are fully booked for the next 8 weekends"......I would suggest that none of those are repeat customers and if you are reading this and booked to go I would advise you to save your money and savour the same experience by buying a Tesco Value Microwave Roast Dinner and going out to your local Mortuary to enjoy.