I love a good roast! (Toby Carvery)

Member Name: katykicker

Product:	Toby Carvery
Date:	28/04/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great taste, lots of choice, fresh products, great desserts, reasonable price.

Disadvantages: Has been a bit hit and miss on occasions.

This review is based on my local Carvery which is Harlow, Essex and I have been to a few Carverys over the past few years and found them all to be very similar in terms of service, waiting time & food quality.

Toby Carvery is a restaurant with a separate bar area which allows people to turn up, without a booking, and head to the Carvery. It is a great place to stop off at any time of the week as it is open 7 days a week from lunchtime until the end of each evening and the price of the Carvery will vary slightly depending on when you visit. For £5.00 on Mon-Sat you can get a Carvery lunch and it's around £7.00 for the evenings with an extra £1.00 charge on Sundays although this does vary from place to place and is, of course, subject to change.

During the week there is Gammon, Beef & Turkey and on Sundays this is accompanied by Pork with crispy crackling. You can choose to have one of the meats, two, three or even a nice slice of each. There are also vegetarian options available and I have dined here on a few occasions with a friend who is a vegetarian and she is always happy with the items available but has to remind the staff to get her some vegetarian gravy as, of course, she doesn't want to use meat dripping gravy! They are usually very prompt with this and I have worried on a couple of occasions that because she's just asked for her own gravy rather than explaining herself that they might just be giving her the standard stuff but she's never complained anyway. There are roast potatoes, new potatoes, mashed potatoes (may vary depending on the time of day & the day of the week) as well as miscellaneous vegetables such as brussell sprouts, peas, runner beans, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, there is always a great selection or at least 3 or 4 vegetable dishes and quite often they have cauliflower cheese but you have to time your visit just right or somebody may well have come along and taken all the cheese from the top or used up all the good potatoes! There is also stuffing & Yorkshire puddings and these are normally huge and look homemade, however, you are only ever offered one with your meat so I normally help myself to another one after I get past the meat counter because I'm greedy and they are so nice! Once you have got your dinner there is a huge selection of sauces and a few different flavoured gravies and these are always kept well stocked and I've never had to wait around for gravy as the more popular types have two large bowls with big ladles and I love to smother my dinner in gravy.

I have only one had a bad meal in the Carvery and this is when I had some roast potatoes which were very hard and just spoilt my meal a little but a nice complaint about this, backed up by some other diners, got us all a free dessert or a half-price meal and everyone was very pleased with this outcome.

I always find the staff to be helpful if a little under attentive but I expect the tips aren't very great here as a lot of people just eat and then leave their money and head out the door. I normally find myself having to ask for another drink and little things like that are what help to make the dining experience enjoyable for me as I want to be waited on I don't want to have to worry about finding a member of staff and then flagging them down just to get a lemonade!

At peak times the wait can be up to an hour and our local branch has become so popular that they have had to add a small extension to add in another 4 or 5 tables but I do think this is making a difference to wait times as I've been a couple of times this year during the evening or on a Sunday afternoon and never waited more than 10 or 15 minutes. If you are a table or 12 or more then it's possible to ring up and book in advance, this is to give them time to prepare your table and keep free tables back of course.

I thoroughly enjoy the Carvery and somehow always find myself having room to squeeze in one of their delicious chocolate fudge brownie sundaes which have lots of chocolate brownie with soft serve ice cream, chocolate sauce & wafers! There are lots of desserts available and most of them come with unlimited custard or cream so that if you can finish the pot you are provided with you can just ask for some more and they'll bring it out free of charge. The desserts are around £3.50-£5.00 depending on what you have and the ones I have tried have always been very pleasing and the correct temperature etc and they are very generous with their portion sizes.

I am rating Toby Carvery 4/5 as it's a very enjoyable experience and the waiters do their best considering how busy the place can be. The drinks are quite reasonably priced as is the menu & my only gripe is that sometimes there is a long wait for a table although as I previously mentioned this has got better recently.

Summary: A fantastic meal for the whole family at a reasonable price.