I’ll start by telling you about day 3’s evening meal… we once again went to The Royal Oak at Hilltops, Beaulieu. It was a different lady from last night but equally affable, and she like the lady from the previous night dealt with everything “front of house” with ease, efficiency and cheerily.
We all ate the same…one of our favourite …Liver and bacon with mash, greens, leeks and carrots and gravy in a little jug on the side….perfectly cooked, perfectly presented but what a plateful…..it was delicious. I think the faces and empty plate speaks volumes…
Excellent value for money …with drinks just under £65…. We were too full for dessert. The friendly member of staff chatted to us about the other restaurants, owned by a local couple, all of which are spread around the New Forest villages, all selling good wholesome, home cooked meals. Thank you The Royal Oak…excellent food, lovely environment, great staff.
The only problem with eating outside of the hotel is that you have to drive back, on unfamiliar roads with ponies wandering about in the dark….most wear reflective collars but that doesn’t help when they’re in the middle of the road with their hind quarters facing you…..we crawled back to the hotel at a very slow pace avoiding several groups of ponies who were determined to cause a road block!!!! Bless them.
Day 4 – Happy 11th Wedding Anniversary to my darling husband – looking forward to more adventures in our 12th year of marriage…..
We awoke early packed up the car on the way to breakfast. It was cold and a hard frost was on the car windscreen. The restaurant is on the far side of the carpark with no internal route. This means you have to wrap up warm to get there. Once again there was a different member of staff on duty. We were offered coffee, but today it was from a thermos heater….no…stewed coffee is the absolute worst…I asked for cafetières with extra coffee…I was told that the coffee came out of the heater and couldn’t be made stronger…..I mentioned we had had it freshly made the 2 previous mornings, the reply was “ we all do things differently”…so I pointed to the sign above and asked if it was a lie… “All you need is love and a good cup of coffee” …reluctantly he went to the kitchen and made us fresh coffee…Rule number 1 for a waiter..never argue with the client…Rule number 2 for a waiter…learn how to make decent coffee…..Rule no 3 for a waiter …Learn rule number 1&2 🤣🤣 The coffee was worse than the day before but better than the first day..Part of the problem with the restaurant is that the staff are always different so they don’t get to know the customers and they are not trained to do things the same way so there is no consistency of service, what a shame.
With breakfast over we returned to our rooms completed our ablutions and said goodbye to the friendly reception staff. The actual hotel staff and rooms are really lovely. However we wouldn’t stay there again because of the very poor restaurant..the poor quality of the evening menu and the actual food tells us they need a much better chef. The poor and inconsistent service tells us their restaurant staff need to be properly trained and finally their inability to make a decent cup of coffee tells us never to stay there again…what a shame …..
We set off for home across the forest moorland. The winter colours of the yellow gorse or is it broom?? And the red berries on the rowan trees making stark contrasts with the white frosty morning
We said farewell to the ponies…see you next year…look after my mum 🥰
We stopped off at Eastleigh for John to have a look in the station yard and then I put my foot to the floor in a homewards direction. Even though it was a Friday and we had several areas of slow moving traffic we made good time. We stopped at Buckingham Garden Centre for a convenient toilet break and to enjoy their Christmas Decorations.
Then again just outside Bedford for a carvery lunch, before dropping Dad off home. We got home at 15.45.
Another wonderful few days in the New Forest.
2 J's World of Adventure 