1 /5 Sue de Beer: We will never go to the Three hammers, NW7, LONDON UK again!
We had a wonderful time two years ago for Christmas lunch and wanted to go again, however when we went there yesterday it was the worst Christmas experience at a restaurant ever!
My elderly mother is visiting from South Africa and possibly our last Christmas ever so we wanted to give her a nice treat.
Sadly it was awful.
Upon arrival we were escorted to the table we pre booked, or so we thought.
We were seated at a table for 4, as there were 3 and I had stated at the time of booking that a friend would join us later but only for drinks, so thought nothing of it as all the tables in that area were the same size. Only to find a few minutes later that another waitress came with a party of 4 saying, could we move as it was actually our table next to the one we were seated at.
Bearing in mind we had coats and jumpers already on our seats and our bags on the floor, I am disabled with crutches and my mother is visibly frail and elderly, I asked the waitress if the cant just add another chair from our table to the other table.
The lady from the 4 table dining party then started arguing with me saying no because the 3 table isnt big enough for 4, to whitch I replied the tables are actually the exact same size. The waitress then reluctantly obliged me.
The waitress and the party of 4 acted as if we just sat went to our table ourselves but we were placed there by the other waiter. Once this was done there was an awful atnosphere.
The drinks arrived fine, then the starters arrived. The prawn cocktail and smoked salmon looked delicious and a good sized portion. However the prawns tasted as if it was thawed frozen prawns that was plated raw with the cocktail sauce poured over it.
My son had the brie wedges that lookd nice and he did enjoy them but they were so small that I ended up giving him one of my pieces of smoke salmon and a piece of my bread. The waitress arrived and cleared two of the plates while my mother was still eating. When the mains arrived, again a dissapointment.
The turkey and gammon I had was thin slices of super dry meat. The gammon even curled up on the side and was lifting upwards from the plate about 2cm. The gravy was luckily in a gravy boat so I could dip some of the meat into it but sadly it was unpleasant as it was mainly oil in the gravyboat. The peas were tasty but the spring greens mixed into it was barely aldente leaning towards raw and a lot of pieces of stem. The potatoes were nice. The carrots were all dried and shriveled with hardly any colour but was at least sweet. The red cabbage was tasty as was the yorkshire pudding.
My mother had the beef but it was super tough to eat, it appears as the beef wasnt rested before it was carved.
Same vegetable and gravy issues.
Mum is not a fan of potatoes or yorksire pudding at the best of times so left most of her dinner much to my dissapointment.
We asked at this point if we could have a jug of water for the table, we are still waiting for the water now.
The deserts arrived.
The Christmas pudding was a mini half a dome mould of pudding consisting of mostly nuts, a little bit of raisins and hardly any pudding batter but was edible, about 2 small spoonfuls. Custard was fine.
We had to take a taxi to and from the 3 hammers costing £25 each way as we live out of area and seamed a huge waste, considering the overall experience.
The value of the meal was terrible.
Had we not prepaid for the meal, I would have refused payment and left to get a fast food delivery that would have tasted better and had less stress.
As we left we had to pay for the drinks bill at the bar, at which point I did inform the waiter of everything I wrote on here and that I was sad that I would have to put this revue into the public domain but I would not wish anyone else to have the same experience and that we would never set foot in their pub again. All he did was to say sorry.
It was clear that The 3 hammers pub changed owners and chef, waiting staff and not for the better.
