Sunday Lunch at the Beefeater

I'm rubbish at cooking Sunday lunch, I'm just not organised enough, my kitchen is a random muddle of bowls and plates and stuff which avalanche out of the cupboards if I dare open them. So I don't very often and restrict myself to cooking things using items of equipment that are on open shelves. Sunday lunch is few and far between, we did occasionally join up with the little garden helpers and do a lunch rota, but that drifted. Maybe we should resurrect that!

In the meantime, we have been having a treat once in a while and testing out Hertfordshires fines eateries. This has meant trips to Wagamama, Pizza Express, the local pubs and now the Beefeater at Stanborough in Welwyn Garden City. Beefeater pubs bring back fond childhood memories of special birthday meals and endless trips to the salad bar. I was very excited about going there.

Nowadays Beefeater's have gone all upmarket with trendy carpets and lampshades and no salad bar. The menu is exactly what you would imagine, and for Sunday lunch its perfect. Although the lack of a vegetarian option was a bit disappointing. When we walked into the Stanborough Beefeater we were greeted with friendly and helpful staff. Clearly happy in their work, the staff were pleasant to all the customers. The children were provided with colouring books which is a helpful touch when you are trying to entertain them.

The food arrived promptly, the starters were great, we liked the vegetables and dip

that Fifi had and the garlic bread was yummy. One little thing of puzzlement was the fact that we had a kids garlic bread and an adult garlic bread and although exactly the same, we were charged different prices for them.

There were plenty of dinner options you can find the menu here. I really fancied roast chicken, unfortunately that wasn't on offer the day we visited. So between us we had:

Children's Fish and Chips

Children's Pasta

Minted Lamb & Dauphinoise Potatoes

Adults Steak and Chips

As usual, everyone else's dinner was lovely, but my minted lamb with dauphinoise potatoes was not all that great, although it looked lovely. The potatoes were cold for a start and the sauce was a bit too sticky and not very minty. Still, I made up for it by eating bits of the children's dinners which were nice and eating all of Fifi's ice cream desert which was really yummy.

All in all, I think improvements do need to be made to make this an ideal toddler friendly place. The staff and customers were very understanding of my children, the food was suitable, but it just wasn't quite as easy as it could have been. The highchair was a bit grubby and was one of those ones with a tray, Fifi is used to sitting at the table and so it was a bit of an issue. What's more surprisingly, is that there was no baby changing station in the toilets. Also the toddler sized cutlery was a bit worn out which just didn't look great and my kids preferred to use the adults.

I think that Beefeaters are an excellent choice for a family with slightly older children than mine and are probably the absolutely best option of somewhere to have a family lunch with the grandparents/ great grandparents. In fact, there were lots and lots of families there with older generations.

We liked the atmosphere at the Stanborough Beefeater, the staff were great and the food got a general thumbs up. If you want to see if there is one local to you have a look here.

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Sunday Lunch at the Beefeater