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The Drunken Duck Inn, Barn Gates, Hawkshead, Ambleside, Cumbria LA22 0NG

Submitted by m on Fri, 10/03/2006 - 13:18.

Barn Gates, Hawkshead, Ambleside, Cumbria LA22 0NG

015394 36347

OVERHYPED & OVERPRICED. First visit to this place after reading many good reviews. I booked for 6.30pm being told that they fully booked on that night, only two other people entered the place until 8pm! The reviewers are taken with the place's setting (Beautiful Lake District) rather than what's on the plate. Described as a 'Gastropub' it just another overpriced restaurant pretentious menu which promises more than it delivers. Much emphasis is placed on local sourced ingredients, fine if you can cook, but the Chef seems unable to have grasped the basics of how to make basic sauces. My starter Moules Marinaire was ruined by the sauce lacking in both taste & texture. Main course Fillet Steak (medium) was drier than Ghandi's Flip Flop! The Roast veg consisted of 3 tiny Roast Spuds 3 RAW Carrots and an insipid blanched Courgette, I requested Mustard and was informed that none was available in any shape or form. The Fillet Steak main course was £22.50 West End Prices! I wrote to them asking if the lack of Mustard was an oversight or the Chef's philosophy I am still awaiting a reply 2 months after.
Dunagain

Almost exactly the same experience

We booked to have Sunday lunch at the Drunken Duck only to be told we had to get there really early as it was very busy that day. We rushed to make it only to find the restaurant deserted. There were only two other tables in that entire lunchtime. The food was overpriced, the staff very unfriendly and snooty, and they were unpleasant to my young son. Never again.

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