1:50pm Monday 12th July 2010
By Kat Dibbits
ASK any journalist to knock out a restaurant review and they suddenly think they’re Giles Coren. Or, even worse, Michael Winner.
To be honest, I’ve been one of the worst offenders.
But let’s face it. You just want to know if a place is worth going to and if the food is any good. Why else would you read a review?
I didn’t go with the family to Smithills Coaching House to generate some elaborate back story that would allow me to indulge in witty word play.
I went with my beautiful wife and our two young children because we had had a busy Saturday and, frankly, I was too tired and lazy to pull any rabbit pies out of my magic chef’s hat.
If you’ve never been, the setting is fantastic. The Coaching House is in fact the former stables of historic Smithills Hall, dating from the 1600s and set in a bona fide country park.
It was opened as a themed restaurant in the late 1960s and if you were to tell me nothing has changed in that time, I’d believe you. Not that that’s a bad thing. It smacks of authenticity right down to the antlers on the walls and stuffed badgers in glass cases.
Sadly, at some point the owners decided they needed to up the ante by introducing a Dickensian theme. The dishes are named after some of the writer’s grubby characters whose portraits adorn the walls, for example.
Quite why they have done this, who knows? Dickens for me is all about beating orphans in Victorian London slums, nothing to do with an historic countryside inn. Perhaps the waiting staff used to be pickpockets?
Hard to believe though, as they are all so polite and friendly. (Although suspiciously quick and attentive, now I think of it).
We were shown to our seats and were eating our first course in double quick time.
The menu is another thing I don’t think has changed in a few decades.
I am certain people have been there and eaten the same thing as me in years gone by and had conversations about not drinking the water if you go to Spain on holiday. It was all very 1978.
The food wasn’t wonderful. Nor was it bad. It was all right, nice. But my goodness, there was lots of it.
Madame had chicken soup (“all right I suppose”) followed by gammon, egg and chips (“delicious“).
My breadcrumb jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese were nice too, but not as exciting as they sound. The fillet steak with chips was good. Big juicy, bloody as hell steak, the creamy pepper sauce I got with it was bland though. Enough carrots, peas and mushrooms on the side for 74 of my five a day.
(The nipper had pizza and chips off the kids’ menu and seemed happy enough and the other one is too young to eat solid food).
As each of our main courses was literally piled onto an enormous plate with vegetables galore on the side, not one of us could finish it.
So, naturally, we all had pudding.
Apple pie and custard for the lady, which she thought was solid but unspectacular. Same story with my blackberry cheesecake. The little one had neopolitan ice cream all over his face and T-shirt and a mile wide smile. Incredibly, he couldn’t polish it off. To put it in context, that’s like a hungry mongrel turning its nose up at a Cornetto.
And it says everything about the value for money at Smithills Coaching House. We were all full up and the bill was a reasonable £42. That included a couple of drinks each, and my giant fillet steak of course.
As well as being good value and close by, with friendly staff and a nice setting, it passed the eating-out-with-a-young-family litmus test hands down.
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