Jugs in Bristol, a pleasant combination! (Toby Carvery)

Member Name: Emma1973

Product:	Toby Carvery
Date:	06/04/04 (1806 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Food was good quality, Plenty of it

Disadvantages: Bit busy!

Partner wants Sunday lunch, so do I. But I don't want to cook it and partner cant! Lots of hinting later, I was holding out and Alan gave in, conceding to take us to a carvery.

After debating between two we drove up to Maesnoll in the Whitchurch area of Bristol. Its a lovely 2 storey building. Its where it is that's the problem, which leads me to wonder if the building is quite a bit older than it appears. Its on a very busy crossroad's and the car park is completely inadequate, finding anywhere else is a nightmare! It was a case of one in, one out when we arrived.

When we walked in the scene was one of much rushing around, loud packed tables and rather oddly, cosiness! When we asked for a table there turned out to be a maximum of a 35 minute wait. We agreed and trotted off to the bar. This was an oasis of calm, its a large airy area with none of the hectiness of the other side. The place is a contradiction of styles, it has that 'ye olde cottagy' beams, stonework and open fireplaces, whilst the walls display 20th century advertising and stills of film clips and actors. There's quite a few tables with chairs, but also lovely squishy sofa's and stools. They could probably fit in quite a few more tables and chairs but then some of the comfort would be lost.

Drinks were bought and we positioned ourselves for a wait. But it seemed that no sooner had we parked our bums then we were up again. Definitely not a 35 minute wait!

Well, it did feel like 35 minutes by the time we had wended through the restaurant to the rear of the building, right out at the back! Not grim though, it was a bench type seat and chairs next to a big window, lovely panelling and rather oddly we faced a large picture of the Knights from Monty Pythons 'Holy Grail'!

We gleefully opened the menu and got a bit of a shock! I know its a Carvery but I didn't expect that to be the only thing available. Of course I exagg

erate slightly. A range of starters is available, averaging around the £3 mark. I have to say I was exactly startled by them, the Prawn Cocktail was there, as was Melon and Fruit and Soup of the Day. Only one thing that caught my eye and that was the Button Mushrooms in Stilton Sauce, sadly I wasn't being that greedy.
You do have a fabulous 3 other choices to choose from if you don't want the carvery. Actually that's a bit of a lie because one of them is the vegetarian option of the carvery. The other 2 are fish, a Salmon Wellington and a Prawn and Salmon Salad. All cost £7.99

They are kiddie friendly, under 10's can have a small carvery, sausage and chips, chicken nuggets and the like for £3.99

Well me and the other half were there for a Sunday roast so that is precisely what we had, but after a bit of discussion and a sending away of the waitress my daughter chose the Prawn and Salmon salad. Anyway, we were busy dashing off the to carvery counter. There was a choice of Orange and Honey glazed Gammon, Turkey and Pork, but I almost fell at that hurdle because the vegetarian option of a Mushroom and Stilton lattice looked fabulously gorgeous.

But being the complete carnivore that I am I was swayed by the enormous turkey, sizzling pork joint and a huge piece of gammon that was filling my eyesight! I am a little greedy and went for a slice of each. I wasn't disappointed as it covered half of the plate! On to the vegetables...........................

Aah, but the first step was the Yorkshire puddings! No roast beef, but what the hell! Puffy. Golden. Crispy and the size of a saucer, impossible to pass by. The rest of the plate was loaded up with roasted parsnips, carrots, peas, cauliflower cheese,, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and drowned in a thick gravy. Horseradish, cranberry sauce, mint sauce and apple side were also on the side.

Large enough for you? That grotesquely full plate doesn&
#39;t
fulfil your gluttonous needs? In that case you can go back as many times as you please to fill up with more Yorkshires and vegetables (even writing that makes me feel slightly nauseous.)

Our table legs were just about bowing with the amount of food on it. Lucys salad came in a pretty bowl with a huge pile of salad leaves, mounds of prawns and chunks of salmon topped with a 1000 Island Sauce, a nice touch was some crusty bread and butter. It was nice but really just a giant prawn cocktail with extra salmon!

But mine was enormous, hot and begging to be eaten! Of course I had to comply, the fact that the Yorkshire was completely hiding the plate meant that was first down the gullet, and extremely nice too, a fair crisp even when smothered with gravy. All the meat was excellent, very lean and even the pork came with no strings attached! Potatoes are one of my favourites food and the mash tasted like home made (though I doubt it), and the roasters lovely and crisp. Vegetables were vegetables, the majority well cooked and still with a decent crunch, the biggest disappointment was the cauliflower cheese which I absolutely love, to my chagrin you could tell as soon as you put your knife into it that it was undercooked and on the verge of raw.

Overall it was absolutely excellent cooking, and no I didn't manage to eat it all, although the temptation to go back for a couple of extra Yorkshires was extremely strong. The other half managed to almost lick his plate clean, with the exception of the cauliflower cheese.

OK peoples, I am a real pudding aficionado, I've been know not to eat all my main course so that I can fit it a pudding, but this time I really wasn't up for it. And to be honest the puddings were not all that fancy, steamed puddings, chocolate cake, ice cream, etc. But if you do decide to go for it you get the 'never ending pot of custard', yep, you can have as much custard on your plate as you li
ke. You se
e places like this are very clever, they lure you in with promises of 'never ending custard', or eat as much veg as you like, we all think 'how fantastic' and pile in, of course those sneaky beggars know we aint going to manage it in a 1000 years, so are happily creaming off the profits of our gullibility!!

Faulting this place is difficult, with the one exception the food is pretty darn good, as is the service, the cleanliness of the place and the general layout and ambience, the biggest problem is the parking, buses here are really rare so car sharing is perhaps the way to do it. At £7.99 for the carvery its great value, and if you're the kind of person who runs away screaming when they see the words 'red wine jus' or 'raspberry coulis' on a menu, their plain ole 'British' food is going to be just the place for you. Its not exactly the most romantic place either, which girl wants to pick her own food in front of a chap she's trying to impress? Maesnoll is just the place to take your gran out on her birthday, be cautious though, there's a Elderly Person Home of the same name just down the road and she might get a bit of a shock!!

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