The Boat House - Braunston Junction

The Boat House, a well placed canal side pub / restaurant situated at the all famous Braunston Junction.

Upon entering the premises my first impressions where good, well spaced out, lovely unique lighting, lovely furniture and a proper open wood fire.

I approached the bar to order a J2O and to ask if I could have a menu, unfortunately the chap working behind the bar didn’t show me to a table so I had to find my own, this ended up being table 17 in the corner.

The table was well set up to sit 4 guests, napkins folded nicely and cutlery was clean and polished. Unfortunately the candle was not lit and looked like it could have done with a new one all together, the salt and pepper should have been topped up and not left half emptied.

the chairs where very comfortable and suited the decor of the building, and didn’t have any marks on them.

When I was provided with a menu I was very disappointed at poor print quality, it looked like no one cared about the presentation of the menu.

The menu it’s self was detailed and clearly showed (gf) and (ve) options and had clear indications about allergies.

the prices seemed a little higher than one might have expected for such a basic menu. I had a good look over and settled on the Hunters Chicken as my meal of choice.

The wait time for the food was reasonable however when the food arrived I was extremely disappointed, here is what it looked like…

Upon investigation I found the bacon to be dry, chewy and burnt in places. The chicken was cooked however it was very dry as a result of it being grilled, the mature cheddar cheese was not to bad however some areas where more lumpy than others.

The thick cut and deep fried chips where lovely, crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, by far the best part of the meal.

Unfortunately I simply couldn’t finish this dish, when I turned the chicken over it looked very depressing and I made the decision to stop eating. This is what the under side of the chicken looked like…

I was asked if everything was ok before the plate was removed however I chose not to comment at the time in order to give myself the time to come to a proper conclusion.

Well, my overall view of this visit to The Boat House was 100% secured when I took receipt of the bill. I was shocked to see that the Hunters Chicken was incorrectly priced on my bill compared to the price on the menu, only by 50p however this is not a practice acceptable by a large chain pub and it was at this moment I had a word with the chap serving, he very quickly apologised and took a look at the menu and saw I was indeed right, I asked him to do the right thing and inform his general manager and he did just that.

Unfortunately for this visit I felt like I was let down and feel that The Boat House has turned into a more expensive Weatherspoon’s with poor quality food and lack of attention to detail.

My rating on this occasion is 4 out of 10