Jo and I have decided that we are going to start going for Sunday lunch and are going to keep a list of where we've been and what we thought of it. What better place to keep a note of this than on a blog. Here's our first effort at a review.
Venue & Atmosphere
The White Horse Hotel, Hertingfordbury
Hertingfordbury Road,
Hertingfordbury,
Hertfordshire SG14 2LB
[caption id="attachment_109" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="The White Horse, Hertingfordbury"]
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The White Horse Hotel photo by Steve Chilton
Hertingfordbury is a village near Hertford. We walked from Hertford to Hertingfordbury along a designated foot and cycling path in around 40 minutes. It's a woodland walk and is a nice way to get your appetite up for a Sunday lunch.
For a Sunday afternoon the bar area was pretty quiet. It is credit crunch time so I guess that is to be expected. We sat in the bar area which was comfortable and warm. There's an open fire place, which unfortunatley wasn't on, but would certainly help create a nice atmosphere if it was. We did expect the place to be a little more "oldie worldie" and cosy. So, although the place is nice enough it's not quite our cup of tea.
Our rating: 6
Service
The service was fine. The barman brought us our meal and was pleasant. The only gripe I have is that the White Horse do a 3 courses for £14.95 and we initially ordered a starter and a main but the kitchen closed as we were eating and we weren't informed so wouldn't have been able to order a dessert even if we had wanted one.
Our rating: 6
Presentation
The roast came out on two plates. The main plate contained a single yorkshire pudding, some roast potatoes and two good slices of beef. A side plate also came out with a selection of vegatables; carrots, courgettes and mange tout. The picture below shows the main plate but has been partially disturbed - I was hungry :-) All in all the presentation was pretty good. The reason we've only given it a seven is that it was clear that the yorkshire pudding had dried out and the vegetables looked as if they were the last of the day and had been sitting for a while (sorry, no picture of the veg).
[caption id="attachment_108" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="The White Horse, Sunday Beef Roast - partially devoured"]
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Our rating: 7
Taste
We had a tomato soup for starters which was served with warm rolls. The soup was very tasty and had a nice kick to it. The main course wasn't quite as good. The White Horse finish serving at 15:00 and we arrived at 14:40 to make our order. With this in mind I can only assume that they cook everything early on and keep things warm during serving times. So, the yorkshire pudding had dried out quite a bit, the beef was slightly overcooked, the veg had gone a bit soft. We were very happy with the roast potatoes :-)
Our rating: 6
Value
Since we didn't get the 3 courses for £14.95 we were charged £12.95 each for the two courses.
Our rating: 5
Overall
We might go back again, once we've tried a few other places, but we would definitely arrive earlier on in the serving. Hertingfordbury is a nice place, The White Horse is a nice enough place but the Sunday lunch itself didn't quite hit the mark.
Our rating: 6
