Testers Keepers required one person to review a family meal at their local Harvester. This review is from Karen Lister at The White Rose Harvester branch in Leeds.
On arrival we were promptly seated at our table and greeted with a smile.
When seated the waitress introduced herself (Ashleigh) and asked if we had been here before and then explained the menu options (which included a festive menu).
We explained we were waiting for a couple of people to arrive, so she said she would happily wait but in the meantime if we needed anything just to ask.
When everyone arrived Ashleigh came over and took our drinks order. When the drinks arrived she then took our food orders, going round the table for starters and then again for the main courses.
A couple of the meals were requested differently to the menu but she happily made the adjustments and read back the full order to make sure it was correct. She then mentioned the free salad bar and to just help ourselves.
We found the menus were quite varied, having two menus to choose from, but we thought that if it had been just the main menu it would have been a little bit limited. My friends said that pasta and pies would be a nice addition.
All the dishes that we ordered were available and very happy with the clarification of how the orders were taken.
The starters arrived very promptly and all together. The waitresses warned us of the hot plates when serving. The quality of these were very impressive and we had no complaints to any of the starters. We all had different meals consisting of soup, potato skins, garlic mushroom, creamy mushrooms, sticky chicken and breaded chicken.
Once we had finished the starters, the mains arrived (we felt we were given a nice time between and didn’t feel rushed) however, we pointed out that the starter dishes had not been removed from our table.
The waitresses apologised and returned the mains back to the kitchen whilst they removed the starter dishes, then returned with our main courses, making sure we had clean cutlery and more napkins. I think this was just a silly error on behalf of the waitresses involved.
All the meals were correct including the special requests we had asked for. The food was delicious and up to high standards. These consisted of spare ribs, waffles with bacon and chicken, a chicken wrap with no additions, sea bass (which my friend said was one of the best she has had in a long time, no bones and cooked to perfection).
The only criticism was that the skin could have been a little crispier. There was also a bar humbug burger which my friend said was lovely but the sausage was not edible in her opinion. However, all in all we were very satisfied with the quality of the food. We were asked if everything were to our satisfaction, which it was.
After we had finished our mains the plates were cleared away and asked if we required anything else, we requested the dessert menu.
The desserts took a little longer to arrive than the starters and mains but the restaurant had got busier by this time and it was actually quite nice to be given the time for our meals to settle a little.
We ordered five different desserts as me and my friend decided to share the mini combo between us. Chocolate brownie, choc bar and cheesecake were all of a nice portion size and enjoyed by everyone. However, the chocolate fudge cake was huge; my friend couldn’t manage it all but requested a take out which was not a problem with the waitress. The box was handed to my friend who had to sort it out herself, I feel it would have been nicer if the waitress had taken it away and boxed it up herself.
As mentioned, myself and my friend shared the mini combo and we both agreed that the lemon and the Victoria cake felt like it had been frozen and not fully defrosted properly. We mentioned this and were offered an alternative, however by the time we had managed to mention this to the waitress everyone in our party had finished so we refused and asked for the bill.
When she came back with the bill she advised that she had removed the cost of this dessert from this and also deducted £3.97.
We were very happy with this and also pleasantly surprised at the total bill of £111.80 which we all considered excellent value for money.
The restaurant was busy, clean and a pleasant place to be. It looked lovely with the Christmas decorations which were not over the top.
The waitresses were smartly dressed and very pleasant and helpful – always had a smile on their faces and very obliging with any requests we had.
I mentioned Ashleigh as our waitress at the beginning but other waitresses helped when needed, for example, when food was being served. It seemed a very family friendly place with many families present on our visit.
Overall, I would highly recommend Harvester and would certainly visit again. It was a very pleasant experience.