"Newcastle Village Hotel, you can’t REALLY expect to deliver a shoddy cash-grabbing experience like the party of 09/12/2017 and not be called out on it. £30.00 for a turkey dinner? Maybe, for a quality Norfolk bird with ALL the trimmings cooked to perfection; absolutely NOT for this spew. In fact the difference between what it said on the menu and what was served up is so brazen that one can almost admire the cheek of it. The “Proscuitto Wrapped Turkey Breast” was not wrapped in ANYTHING: it was just cheap-tasting turkey breast, like cash and carry stuff. Likewise the “pigs in blankets” HAD NO BLANKETS: They were just cocktail sausages, and not quality ones but the type that contain trotters, ears and lips. The stuffing made Paxo taste like the work of a culinary master by comparison, and the only things I’ve EVER tasted that were soggier than the roast potatoes were the roast parsnips in the next tray along. I can’t comment on the sprouts or carrots as I don’t like either: it would have been nice to have had a greater choice. When the hotel emailed us the menu weeks earlier it asked about any dietary needs, so we advised that one of our party had a gluten intolerance. If he expected a bespoke meal he was sadly mistaken: on the night he was just told not to eat the sausages or the stuffing. Two and a half hours later, following complaints, the man who seemed to be in charge offered to knock up some gluten-free pasta. It was way too late by then. To be fair this has been my experience of Christmas parties over the years: the food is invariably overpriced and substandard yet enough people are persuaded to cough up in advance to make them highly lucrative ventures. It’s a cynical business, and the Village Hotel is down there with the worst of them. Oh yeah, and my cracker contained this tiny little spinning top."
