O perfil de slowdog

Edit 21st June 2008:
Downgrading this to 1 star after another visit to The Inn at the Pond resulted in a fetid-smelling and tasting burger being served.

After a really good first meal (I’m leaving my original meal in for fairness), this meal was a massive let down. We found ourselves entering the restaurant wondering why there were so few people in it for a Saturday lunchtime and left wondering how they were still open, with a sample of food taken to provide to Environmental Health.

Service was terrible: after waiting at the entrance for a couple of minutes, we had to wander around the (mostly empty) restaurant to see ourselves to a table, despite the fact that the waitress has clocked our arrival and said ‘hello’. Drinks, which you’d think they’d be pushing hard, given the massive mark up, were really slow in being offered and topped up.

The food (the edible element) was average. Nothing special, particularly considering the premium prices being charged. If you’re silly enough to visit, please don’t ask for the burger. For one thing, the texture is all wrong - it’s obviously been over-mixed (almost certainly by machine) and the burger my wife tasted and smelt foul. When we complained, the management claimed (without smelling our burger) that the smell was due to the addition of cumin and herbs. So, first off, the smell of the burger served was definitely not just cumin. Secondly, any chef who puts anything but beef, salt and pepper (and, at a push, onion) into a burger better know they’re doing. The chefs at The Inn at the Pond don’t.

I don’t know what’s happened since our first visit, but I’m really disappointed that this place hasn’t lived up to its potential. It’s not even average at the moment.

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Original review:

The Inn on the Pond’s recently been refurbished, and our visit happened to be three days after opening.

The Inn’s decor and furniture has a lovely warm feel to it, and the management have done well not to be tempted into the trap of going for a retro-rustic feel.

The food is posh pub grub (I wouldn’t call this a gastro-pub). Between us we ordered the minute steak ciabatta, the honey roast ham and cheddar baguette, and the thai-spiced fishcakes. All the dishes were excellent, with my fishcakes giving enough of a kick to be noticeable without drowning out any of the other flavours. The chips that accompanied the sandwiches were nicely crunchy on the outside. I’d have preferred them in a thicker cut but to be fair to The Inn… they do advertise them as ‘frites’.

Service was attentive and relaxed (in a good way), and the staff were very friendly towards my 16 month old daughter. I’m not sure the layout of the restaurant will cope with too many young families, but the lack of a children’s menu and high chairs probably shows that The Inn on the Pond isn’t really geared towards that part of the market. (Luckily for me, my daughter is quite happy eating normal food that hasn’t been dumbed down for children.)

The Inn’s currently in a ‘soft launch’ period -- as The Inn’s website puts it, so “we do not do a ‘Terminal 5’” -- and the menu on offer to us was supposedly limited. Personally, I think it was about the right length, and I’ll be interested to see how they cope with the extensive menu currently being touted on their website.

Recommended, although I hope this place doesn’t become too popular, since it’s my local and I’d like to be able to get in without too much trouble.

A pleasant bistro/café in Tyrrelstown that makes for a nice dining option if you don’t want to go ‘posh’ in the Chinese restaurant across the road or chav with a pizza from Godfather’s Pizza, also across the road.

There’s quite an extensive menu, with plenty of pizza and pasta options, as well as standard grilled meat fare. I opted for the meat, cheese and garlic calzone. I’m not sure if there was a glut of garlic that the chef had to get rid of, but I only made it halfway through the dish before I could smell the garlic already oozing out of my pores! Shame, because the calzone was actually really well made.

Service was friendly enough, although the lack of other business (I went on a Tuesday night) made me feel a bit self-conscious. Still, it was a pleasant way to kill an evening, reading the paper, rather than sitting in the hotel room.

Kind of what you’d expect from a pizza franchise. A selection of pizzas with various toppings that would make an Italian cry, along with a choice of ‘sides’, like garlic bread and chicken ‘chunks’.

Minus points:
- The base was made from a travesty of a pizza dough. Less like bread and more like biscuit, it lacked the requisite satisfying chewiness
- While we’re on the base, you don’t get any sort of choice - it’s ‘thick’ or nothing
- The awful mafia theme to the menu (e.g. the seafood pizza is dubbed the ‘sleep with the fishes’ pizza)

Plus points:
+ I didn’t have to wait very long for my order
+ To be fair, I did finish my fairly large pizza, so it can’t have been that bad

Not recommended, although there isn’t really much other choice for pizza if you live in Tyrrelstown.

A Chinese restaurant in the tiny Tyrrelstown ‘town centre’, Aurora is surprisingly large for such a sleepy suburb. Decor is fairly upmarket for a Chinese restaurant, and the service reflects that, making for an extremely pleasant and relaxed experience.

The menu, on the other hand, is fairly standard fare, which is slightly incongruous with the surroundings. That said, there was nothing wrong with the food served (I went for a beef with spring onions and ginger, with some fried rice), and it was served promptly, still sizzling from the wok.

The dessert list was slightly disappointing, looking like it consisted mainly of those horrific mass-produced frozen concoctions you normally see on laminated menus; on the plus side, it prevented me from adding to my waistline, and kept the expense police happy that I stayed within budget.

The restaurant’s well laid out (and quiet enough) that I didn’t feel like a big Billy No-Mates having dinner by myself, although take away is available. If, like me, you find yourself staying in the Park Plaza in Tyrrelstown and unable to face room service or the hotel restaurant, this is worth the 5 minute walk.

Lovely place to go if you want to have a lazy afternoon and spend hours having a leisurely lunch. When I went, the place was packed, and full of grey-haired ‘ladies who lunch’. There was a nice informal buzz about the place, and the waitresses were obviously busy yet still very polite and efficient.

The menu provides variety without being stupidly long. I think there was a choice of five starters and five mains which, to me, is A Good Thing: it means that the kitchen can concentrate on getting a few dishes spot on.

Prices here are high (I chose the most expensive dishes: £14.50 starter, £27 main), and the food very nearly justifies it. There’s absolutely no doubting the quality of the ingredients and the skill in constructing the recipes, but my scallops were overcooked by, ooh, maybe 30 seconds, and the rare steak I ordered arrived medium-to-well-done, albeit beautifully seared and still wonderfully tasty. Not major crimes, but at these prices you expect perfection.