Reviews in Newport

We went on a Tuesday early evening, pre-quiz. Lovely welcome, friendly staff. My son had a starter of the chicken wings and the garlic flat bread. The wings were thoroughly enjoyed but the flat bread was tiny, and cold. It came with what was named beetroot houmous - it tasted of beetroot at first bite then absolutely nothing, so quite unpleasant. Unfortunately they had no regular houmous to replace it with. We mentioned it in passing and it was nice to see at the end that it had been removed from the bill. For mains, my son had the burger and onion rings; the onion rings were stone cold and were replaced. (Made me wonder how long a deep-fried anything had to sit around for to get cold, not a brilliant thought). The replacements were bloody nice, very well done. He enjoyed the burger and fries, but he was left looking hungry so portions could’ve been slightly larger by the looks of it. I had the filet mignion as a treat. As a steak it was absolutely fine; a fillet it was not. There’s a world of difference between a fillet and the steaks ‘below’ it; the grain is so compacted it’s almost not visible. You could have driven a bus through these and connective tissue isn’t present in a fillet - it was a nice piece of rump at best. Didn’t say anything - that feeling when you’ve already had to mention things and you’re starting to feel like you’re casting a damper on the evening..? Our friends’ meals were nice enough - I think - they didn’t remark either way; they had the share board - so the same houmous and had to leave it. Portion sizes were small. I felt there was a distinct disinclination to give. The sauces brought out on request were scrapings of condiments in tiny little paper pots, which really surprised me as they completely clashed with the presentation they seemed intent on pursuing with the slates and skillets. I haven’t been in to a McDonald’s for a very long time, but it was the exact same paper pots we’d get the kids’ ketchup in. The one thing which got to me was the ‘in your face’ very loud electronic door bell noise - presumably alerting waiting staff to pick up every time an order was ready to go. Now that was nasty. In a massively busy, noisy environment I can imagine this going somewhat unnoticed - this wasn’t that. Would we go back? Only if friend of ours wanted to and there was a quiz on; we’d go with the flow. Staff were lovely.