Béarnaise Sauce
Marco Pierre White Steakhouse, Grill Southampton

Marco Pierre White Steakhouse, Grill Southampton

Grand Harbour Hotel Southampton, West Quay Road, United Kingdom, SO15 1AG

Tea • Steak • Grill • Cheese


"Unfortunately very disappointed with the meal we had here on Saturday2 Sept 23. Having been in the past we were really looking frwd to our treat at this hotel and a meal at the 'Marco Pierre White ' steakhouse. After placing our order for the fillet steaks we not only had to wait 50 minutes for any food to arrive (we were seated as it opened so not many other diners were there) but then the under average meal arrived. The Koffman fries were absolutely inedible. They were burnt with grease coming out of them and most were small burnt ends and looked disgusting (see photos). We mentioned this to our waiter when he came to check and he offered to bring new fries. We waited another 10 minutes for these to arrive but by then our steaks were eaten as they were getting cold. The waiter should of taken our plates away and got rid of the old fries, but instead he left them on our plates. The new fries were not alot better and we didn 't eat many due to the meal now being ruined! The waiter then bought us the bill. I just couldn 't believe we were about to pay nearly £80 for a meal that was utterly disappointing. I made an error here by paying the bill in full then thought I would go and speak to the manager. This was a big mistake. After waiting another 10 minutes to speak to someone the manager came over and said all she can offer is 20% off next time we visit. I told her this will not be happening and we won 't return. She said nothing else can be done and didn 't even offer a refund of the chips. I was disgusted and told her that if I had known this I would not of paid the bill at all until I had spoken to her, I felt dubed and angry, we even paid the service charge, added without us asking. As the restaurant manager surely she would have a small amount of discretion to offer something back to us??? I really don 't think it was to much to ask for? She just said she couldn 't offer anything else, which I don 't believe for one minute. I asked how I can escalate this further and she told me I can speak to hotel reception. We went back to our room and decided to ask for the manager when checking out in the morning. I spoke to the guest relations manager when we checked out, to be fair he did listen and take down notes and my contact details. He assured me he would look into this and come back to me. He accepted the restaurant manager was wrong in not dealing with this the previous evening. After 5 days of no contact from him I emailed to chase it up, then another 2 days (1 week had now passed) I decided to email the hotel chain direct to pass on my complaint and gave them all the details in an email. Two hours later I finally had a response from the guest relations manager. Although he apologised I was refunded just £13! From an £80 meal, absolutely unbelievable. Due to these circumstances and the way it was handled I cant recommend this hotel or steakhouse and will definitely not be returning. This is a restaurant backed by a 3 star michilin chef hence you expect good service and quality food, especially for the higher price you pay, seems like we were just paying for the name! Very disappointed"

The Grill on the Market

The Grill on the Market

2 - 3 West Smithfield Smithfield London, EC1A 9JX, United Kingdom

Beer • Steak • Grill • British


"London is filled with restaurants of all cuisines you can find everything from thai and indian through to ethiopian or moroccan but sometimes you just can't beat a bit of British. British cooking to me means one thing. Meat. I love big, comforting plates of honest food whether that comes in the form of beef, pork, lamb or chicken. I'm a meat veg girl through and through so when I was recently invited down to The Grill on the Market, near Smithfields market one look at the menu and I knew I'd love it. Grill on the Market is a restaurant from the Blackhouse group. They've got restaurants across the country in Chester, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester and the site at Smithfeilds market is its only London outpost. Blackhouse are all about no nonsense, honest and simple cooking and that's exactly what they serve up. We wanted to make sure we tried as much of the menu as possible so we ordered the Blackhouse Sharing Plate £15.75) which allows you to try four starter dishes for a very reasonable price. Honey glazed chicken skewers, salt and pepper calamari, BBQ ribs and baked sweet potato wedges. All served withthree dips BBQ, Aioli and a mint coriander creme fraiche. The ribs had that perfect fall off the bone, melt in the mouth texture and the calamari oh the calamari.... Squid has a tendency to be cooked to the point of tasting like rubber in lots of places but GoTM got it just right. Perfectly cooked in a light batter which sung when dunked in the garlic y mayonnaise. I also spied Scottish mussels on the menu and couldn't resist ordering a bowl to share I'm greedy, remember people). There's a choice of two sauces so we went with the cream and white wine option £7.75) which was gorgeous if a touch under seasoned, but a good squeeze from the lemon provided on our sharing platter totally took it up a gear. Make sure you order some bread as the sauce is just dying to be mopped up once you've eaten the mussels. I even drained the whole bowl with a spoon once the bread was gone... For main courses we both went for rib eyes. Rib eye steak is by far my favourite cut it's covered in fatty marbling which creates a rich, beefy flavour. This cut of steak is best medium rare as it allows the fat to melt slightly and all the flavour to be absorbed when cooked right, it tastes incredible. All the steaks at Grill on the Market are served with a choice of baked potato, home cut chips or mash. We both very predictably went for steak and home cut chips because diets are not designed for date night. Tom kept it fancy by adding a skewer of garlic king prawns £5) to go with his steak and I chose a Béarnaise sauce £2.25), which tasted so good I could have drank it straight from the jug. I didn't but you know I totally would've) Side orders of roasted field mushrooms £3.25), green vegetables £3.75) and onion rings £3) set off our meal perfectly. By this point we'd eaten a lot of food. But I couldn't leave without pudding. and things definitely kicked up a gear when it came to desserts. Sticky Toffee Pudding and Pavlova are my favourite desserts not counting Banoffee Pie of course) and here they both were on the menu. It took very little persuasion to get Tom to share both with me...along with a bottle of Picpoul £26). If you go, I urge you to order the sticky toffee....served piping hot with cold vanilla ice cream it's gooey, sticky, warm and absolutely delicious. I almost wrestled Tom out the way so I could get a bite. The raspberry pavlova £6.75) also did not disappoint. A GIANT meringue stuffed with fresh cream, raspberries, cherries and fruit couli. Wow. Just wow. I would definitely recommend heading to Grill on the Market if you're looking for somewhere lively and affordable to have dinner it would also be great for drinks after work if you're in the area. We were there on a Friday night and they had live music in the form of a pianist playing all my favourite 80s motown songs the perfect setting for a brilliant evening. Big thank you to Kamil for arranging our dinner for us and to our waitor Joe for looking after us brilliantly on the night!"

The Coachman's

The Coachman's

The Falcon Hotel Breakwater RoadCornwall EX23 8SD, EX23 8LQ, Bude, United Kingdom

Cafés • Pizza • Asiatic • European


"SO disappointing! When we arrived and said we had a table booked, the table was just pointed out to us. We sat down, but no one brought menus or took a drinks order. After at least 20 minutes one of our party queued at the bar, and when it was his turn to be served was told to sit down and someone would come over. Another 15 minutes went past, then my husband stopped a waitress and asked if we could order drinks. He was told very brusquely that someone would come soon. At this point we would have had our drinks if he'd been allowed to order at the bar, but no, another 15 minute wait. Another waitress spotted that we didn't have menus, so finally brought us some. We had booked a table for 6pm as we had young children with us, but it took so long to order food and drinks, we were there much later than planned. I chose sea bream and saute potatoes, but received sea bream and boiled new potatoes, and when I questioned it, someone eventually came back and said they were saute potatoes (like none I've ever seen or would want I left them). I know it was the time of year, but the place was taken over by huge Christmas parties, which was never mentioned when we booked. Our table was in the bar, so we were surrounded by people standing and drinking, and the noise level was unbearable. When I booked, I said it was for a special birthday, and my son even brought a table decoration with us, so it was obvious what we were celebrating, but no one said a thing about it or tried to make our experience special. We felt like an inconvenience, as obviously they only cared about the Christmas parties. Sadly, this is not my first visit to the Falcon Hotel, but it will be my last, especially as having eaten at another restaurant in Bude the night before where the food was superb and we were treated very well. I know where I will eat in the future."