http://www.essexrestaurants.com/ 559-902 http://www.essexrestaurants.com/epping-venues/epping-restaurants/carriages-restaurant-theydon-bois-essex.html I absolutely agree with Paul below. This restaurant should be avoided. The food is not tasty or inspiring but it does look "pretty".....but who wants pretty food with no flavour.

Out starter was basically cheese on toast....it seriously was that plain. The Beef Sunday Roast had so little flavour that salt, pepper and a ton of horseradish was required to give it some taste.

Their only saving grace was the dessert of passion fruit parfait, now that was delicious.

It seems to me that the award has gone to their head and they now believe they can serve anything to the public and we should be grateful for eating in such an establishment rated so highly by the Guardian. Poppycock!

Please save some money and time, avoid the total disappointment and travel, give this restaurant a wide berth. ]]> Mon, 12 Jul 2010 14:29:46 +0100 559-900 http://www.essexrestaurants.com/epping-venues/epping-restaurants/carriages-restaurant-theydon-bois-essex.html Just where do all the positive reviews come from? Arriving at 8pm, 30 minutes early on a Saturday night to a less than half full restaurant one would have expected a warm welcome?

Instead it went something like this; "Oh your table is booked for 20.30 and we dont know if the waiter is ready for you -- eh! What on earth could he be doing with only 3 tables to serve?

Whatever we made the best of it and ordered from the short menu, that was easy. The food however was not all it was cracked up to be -- triple cooked chips, maybe -- cooked first on Thursday again on Friday and finally especially for us on Saturday.

Sea Trout - small, uninspiring and lacking seasoning, and so it went for the Steak and Fish & Chips which required a maginifying glass to find on the plate.

Service, well the Portugese waiter was fun but his assistant was not managing to spill wine on table at each glass fill.

Overall less than 2nd rate and not worthy of any praise whatsoever, add to this a lack of aircon on what was probably the warmest evening of the year made it a night to remember, for all the wrong reasons. ]]> Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:27:03 +0100