Taste Test
| ECHO NEWS | |  | | | | | | | | FEATURES | | | | | | | SOUTHEND UNITED | | | | HEALTH | | | | | | | COMING UP IN YOUR ECHO | |
|
|
|
Greenhouse needs hotting up
 |
| Big portions - The Greenhouse, Leigh |
SET in Belfairs woods in Leigh, the Greenhouse restaurant has recently undergone a big refurbishment.
The former Portuguese eatery is now a large restaurant with a smart, unfussy decor and patio doors overlooking the garden - this, no doubt, would be a big bonus on a warm summer evening.
The furniture is modern, the chairs comfortable, but just a handful of tables were occupied on this chilly, blustery December evening.
The menu, with fixed prices of two or three courses, offers the just the right amount of choice and we settled on good, old-fashioned starters of tomato soup and prawn cocktail.
Both were good - the soup nice and thick and the cocktail light and tangy. But, if anything, the bottom of my soup dish came too soon, although Jo had no complaints with her starter.
However, these barely had time to find their way to our stomachs before the main courses were served. And they were huge.
However, my turkey roast was missing the crucial stuffing and its place was taken by oversized, rustic looking batter puddings. I must confess these had to take a supporting role and went untouched as I tried to make my way through the mountain of meat and vegetables.
Jo opted for pan-fried calves liver and crispy bacon, also accompanied by heaps of veg. She failed to get even halfway through before declaring that she felt sleepy, in that Christmas afternoon sense of it.
Although it would be unfair to say this was a triumph for quantity over quality, it must be said that the portions still came out slightly ahead at the expense of desserts which we considered, briefly, before asking for the bill.
Service was informal, friendly and efficient and there was some awful easy-listening music that did its best to distract us.
The Greenhouse didn't take plastic either but there was a cash machine in the restaurant that charged us £1.75 to get the money out for the bill.
The Greenhouse, Belfairs Park, Eastwood Road North, Leigh - 01702 523817
Our verdict
Food - 2/5
Service - 4/5
Atmosphere - 3/5
Value - 3/5
Decor - 4/5
What we ate
Starters: Prawn cocktail, Tomato soup
Main courses: Pan-fried calves liver with crispy bacon, Turkey roast
(Two courses cost £13.50 each, three courses cost £16.95).
Print 
Email this 
Comment
What are these links for?
If you liked this article and would like to share it with others on the web who might be searching for good content we've made it easy for you to do it.
At the bottom of all articles, you'll see links to six sites. These sites - commonly called 'social bookmark' or 'social news' sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.
Clicking the links will automatically add the address of the story you are reading to one of these sites, letting you share it with others. Each site will ask you to register to share stories. Registration is free and once a member, you can store, recommend and search for stories that interest you.
More on Digg
More on del.icio.us
More on Furl
More on reddit
More on NowPublic/
More on Yahoo!
