The Crabtree Tavern

10-11-2008
Benny W  7 

food all seems to come out of a packet and a pretty dire packet at that

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11-10-2008
lydia_king99

We visited the Crabtree today following a walk by the river. We were looking forward to it as have often walked past it and live not too far away. Unfortunately it ruined an otherwise lovely sunny day. We were warned by the waiter that our order would take 40 minutes but after waiting over an hour we had to complain as the food still hadn't arrived. When it finally did, my steak and ale pie was rock hard and my husband's fish and chips was dire. We wished we had read the other reviews here before going. All around us people were complaining or getting their money back. I certainly would not return despite the location.

10-08-2008
charlotte

The Crabtree relies too much on its glorious location, which hides a multitude of sins. The food goes from bad to worse. In fact it is a joke. One should not have to wait for an hour for a simple salad. However, the bar staff do their best without proper management. If it wasn't for the garden and the riverside location, I would not give this establishment the time of day, despite it being my local!

27-10-2007
mark

Couldn't agree more.The only pub in the area so it doesn't need to try. Gets a passing trade from tourists doing the thames path - pity them!We ordered veggie lasagnes - came in cereal bowls and looked like a child had made it at school.

25-10-2007
katpot

I've been going to the crabtree for about two years now. At first it was reasonable, solid menu and decent food, but nothing to write home about. It's slowly gone downhill from there. Some experiences include not being able to offer half the things on the menu or wine list, a waiter getting aggressive because we would like cutlery with our meal and our most recent experience which made me realise that eating dog in vietnam really wasn't my worst eating experience! Amongst a table of six of us a steak and ale pie came out with gray mash and pastry so hard a knife couldn't go through it. It came out within 5 minutes of ordering and was finished before the remaining meals came out 30 minutes later. A rarerump, pear, walnut with red cabbage salad came out with apple, not pear, peanuts, not walnuts, red onion and roast vegetables instead of red cabbage. Steak and chips done medium rare came out looking like it had been cooked for four days but both the steak and chips were stone cold. I have to say, you can be forgiving if a restaurant gets it wrong once or twice. But Crabtree consistently gets it wrong. I've spoken to staff there a few times and asked them to pass the complaints to the chef - all you get is a shrug of the shoulders and a look that says too bad! All in all, it's not worth the effort. Even just popping in for a drink on a summers day (which is supposed to be their forte) is a mission with their undertrained staff and a bar too small it can't handle the crowds.