The Kitchen Garden

After our large lunch yesterday we just got a couple of small things from Booths, the local supermarket, and had a picnic in the room while watching something on Netflix.  After breakfast this morning we called in briefly on W's sister before heading home.  Quite a good journey back which took six hours in total, including a couple of brief stops.

We really enjoyed our stay.  The hotel is in a glorious position in the Forest of Bowland overlooking a river and with good walks nearby, the rooms are good and it is undoubtedly popular; there are several different areas in the restaurant and they were all full each evening, and there were some very expensive cars parked outside.  But would we go back?  Probably not.  The food is of the 'quantity over quality' variety; not bad but not great.  A couple of the starters we had (a prawn brochette and salt and pepper squid) were quite clearly from a bought in frozen catering pack; they'd only been heated up in the kitchen.  There was quite a variety of main courses a lot of which could be prepared well in advance and heated up, and then either a steak or fish and chips.  From what I saw and tasted I could have made pretty much all of the dishes as well or better myself and if I'm eating out I like to have something that I either couldn't or wouldn't cook.  But don't get me wrong; I'm not criticising them, but being a bit of a 'foodie' I like to have something that shows off the chef's skills and imagination.

I suspected I may not get much chance to take any pictures today so took this picture of the hotel kitchen garden before we set off to drive home.