Funniest restaurant review ever?

[David Baxter PhD]

Had Better Service Being Mugged In The Street - Review of Woodhouse Gardens, Manchester, England - TripAdvisor
Ranked #1,059 of 2,314 Restaurants in Manchester
Reviewed September 4, 2017

A few years ago I was walking down the street when three lads in balaclavas jumped me, slashed me a few times with a pocket knife and then finished it off by stealing a couple of hundred quid and kicking me in the head leaving me covered in blood. I would hand on heart say that they were more polite than the staff in here.

We'd booked a table for 12 on a Saturday afternoon and to be fair we can be awkward. One sister doesn't like 'real sausages' because she's grown up on Richmond and their 38% meat content and another sister has a minor nut allergy (which we'll go into with great hilarity in chapter 17). But minor things like this hardly constitute being treated by lepers.

Personally I think the restaurant manager, who's worked there for years is ok and I'm used to her slightly cold approach, so when she began to take orders two weeks after we got there I thought she was being polite, but everybody who hadn't been before were all wondering why she was so rude so it was a bad first impression straight away.

As nobody had mentioned the specials I wandered over to the board and read them out to everyone. When the starters came and the soup of the day was wrong we pointed it out and she said to me 'the board doesn't even say that' when I pointed directly to the board that said it she solved the problem by turning it round so you couldn't see what it originally said then carried on blaming me. I wondered if we'd been there that long without food that I may have turned dyslexic because she didn't even bat an eyelid as she accepted no blame.

Throughout the service we were served by about 45 different people, I think this is a cunning ploy so that you forget who to blame for what. We asked one girl for the cocktail menu and she told us they didn't serve them before sprinting off, we pointed to a sign on the wall saying 'Try A Cocktail' to the next person, a young polite guy who proudly told us he was really good at making them so we asked him to give us 3 options and we'd choose one. WE NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN. My theory is that he went to ask the manager if he could be flexible and she murdered him before shoving him in the cellar, I'm just waiting for missing posters to start popping up in the local area then I'll tell my side of the story. All we wanted was a Daiquiri.

Whilst ordering the mains we asked the restaurant manager instead of the beef could we have two sausages on the roast. She said it was too busy. The table went deathly quiet as everybody was too intimidated to point out that we were THE ONLY TABLE IN THE RESTAURANT. But 11 grown adults and an 8 month old baby were all too scared by then to say anything. Instead when she shouted 'what else do you want' from the other side of the room' without passing us a menu or anything we just chose whatever we could remember. My sisters boyfriend felt so victimized afterwards that I think he wanted to file a police report but we told him not to as we wanted to leave the place alive. Seriously though, the most inflexible restaurant ever.

The group was split on the food, I really liked both courses as did others. The mushrooms in pesto were really good, chicken skewer starters were excellent and my pasta dish and the burgers were a hit but everyone who had the roast (not all of them are awkward) thought the roasts were bland and the beef was really fatty.

I got my daughter stuck in a highchair halfway through the meal that was hilarious. Literally nearly had to phone the fire brigade. It brought some welcome light relief to a very tense table. For about 12 seconds.

As desserts were ordered the real drama began. My sister (the birthday girl) has a very genuine nut allergy. Not deadly serious but if she eats any her throat swells up and she has to have anti histamines. Now maybe we should have been more cautious when we ordered but the conversation went like this.
Sister: "Does that have nuts in it?"
Young Server: "Nah it's a brownie"
In hindsight I think the girl misheard and thought my sister said "Does that have fluff in it?" it's the only answer I can think of.
Anyway drama ensued as my sister took one bite before grabbing for her anti histamines as though her life depended on it (which it probably did) and the girl strolled off to be replaced by member of staff no.328. the restaurant manager, who politely asked if we required an ambulance. I couldn't look at this stage and just buried my head in my hands as the awkwardness consumed me. She asked if we needed an ambulance in the same tone as she'd ask you if you wanted ice in your drink, i thought she was going to continue with 'Or do you want to just die here? If you do die here then we'll take the brownie off the bill for you'.

Once my sister had finished going into anaphylactic shock I ate the brownie and I must say it was delicious. A lot of very large nuts in it though.

The meal was rounded off with one of the most hilarious scenes you would witness as three of the staff (they must have lost an epic battle to be the ones to have come over to the table) came over singing Happy Birthday. We all joined in and ended it by all shouting together "Hip Hip - Don't Die!". As the chorus ended the restaurant manager put the cake down before saying "Be careful, it says it may contain nuts" before walking off like a performer does after doing the mic drop. My sister just glared at me, of course it was me that had bought the cake.

As I checked the bill at the end I noted that nothing had been taken off the bill, not even the cheesy garlic bread which came out with the dessert. That was because we'd asked for it to come out without the balsamic vinegar. I imagine it took so long because the chef went into a rage and refused to do any more work before the staff promised to stop giving in to customers. This can be the only reason because it's clear that this is the most inflexible restaurant you could possibly visit.

A truly terrible experience but the worst thing about all of this is that I will have to go in again at some point because the pub down the road is even worse.