The new look Hilden Manor....

I've been meaning to go to the Hilden Manor ever since it reopened after its tragic destruction by fire two years ago. It's incredible what they have done there; you'd have thought for all the world that they would have given up and built a modern estate there or something. All credit to the architects and construction team who have managed to pull it off. So off I went then on a rainy Sunday (today) to experience and appreciate their work. The outside looks incredible, an improvement in fact. They've made better use of the car park area with the new hotel facilities. However (and you must have known that there'd be a however!) the inside is absolutely awful; its just another Beefeater steakhouse with benches where there should be tables and a serve 'em quick and get 'em out type approach to Sunday lunch. To be fair the food was adequate, but that's all. I had roast beef and yorkshire pub, which you would have thought they would have got spot on. It was ok, but a really small portion of beef and virtually raw carrots. The chicken roasts, which my kids had, were somewhat larger and the sticky toffee pudding was pretty good. Our waitress, Emma I think, was very attentive and helpful, if a little rushed and did sort out the raw carrots without any fuss (although I suspect they came back having been blitzed in the microwave) so I still left her a three quid tip, which was generous enough for an average meal. As I said I had been looking forward to trying it out, but I came out thinking that it could have been so much better in that amazing building. Why didn't they build something really special there instead of short changing customers with a restaurant which is only a couple of notches up from a McDonald's....