Toby Carvery Taunton

First time to the Toby Carvery. Went at 7pm on a Saturday evening. Booked in advance. The servers were absolutely amazing, very polite and nothing could be too much trouble, really made you feel like you were valued as a customer. We had the carvery, very reasonably priced. The portion size was fantastic, food quality was of a very high standard with the exception of a couple of hard roasties but that is nothing to complain about. Two very nice puddings, fruit crumble and custard and an ice cream and flake. Very much recommend a visit and certainly felt it was value for money. The atmosphere was really pleasant and we did not feel we were being rushed even though it was a Saturday evening.

Staff were really helpful and friendly, veg for carvery had been hanging around a while the peas were shrivelled up, the cabbage was dry and crispy from being under the lights too long and the cauliflower cheese was just mush left, all the veg was luke warm. I had the broccoli and cheese pastry which was freshly cooked and very nice. The location was very handy and had a warm and friendly feel to it.

2 stars for the chef and majority of the waitresses however the side was let down by one incompetent waitress. When we arrived we were met with a nice lady who showed us to our table only to find that after making a special request not to be seated near the door, we were. She then introduced us to her colleagues who she said would take our drinks orders. We were then met with a 20 something waitress who looked offended at the fact we were trying to make an order with her. She said she didn’t know the drinks we had tried to order which were simple. Like a pepsi from their already barren drinks menu. All throughout this time she had a very disturbed look on her face and we were not sure what we had done to tick her off. We were then told actually to go to the bar ourselves. I honestly believed the thing that served us was unable to string a sentence together never mind remember our order. But then 20 minutes later we overheard her taking a customers order from a nearby table and could perfectly understand them, even had a note pad for the order. The other waitresses that served us were lovely and the food was delicious:)

Food quality was great and good value for money. Restaurant seating areas a little grubby - tables had been wiped down but it felt like it had been a while since a vacuum had been run around. Service at the carvery counter was frustrating, both for customers and the server as the fulfilling of takeaway orders from the same counter slowed things down and left no availablity of some items for customers already at the counter. Why are take away orders not processed in the kitchen?

The pork and gammon was lovely, there was no crackling or apple sauce though. Apparently they haven’t had crackling for months which I don’t understand with having pork. Roast Potatoes we’re almost burnt so avoided those, and veg looked like it had been there a while with dried tops, aside from all that it tasted divine. It’s a handy place to go but no longer a cheap roast out 🤷🏼‍♀️