Newark and Sherwood
The Rose Cottage

The Rose Cottage

Old Rufford Road, Newark and Sherwood, United Kingdom

Steak • Pasta • Burgers • Chicken


"My wife and I have frequented the Rose Cottage on numerous occasions and have never had anything bad to say. That was until today. Everything was fine on arrival and the starters that we ordered were delicious and my main was perfect. My wife had...ordered a Penang Curry with chicken. Now as my wife is Thai, she is well aware of what a Penang curry should look and taste like. What arrived out of the kitchen was neither a Penang Curry nor any form of curry that I have ever seen or tasted. What came out was a hodgepodge of winter vegetables in what I believe was more of a stew. I have never known parsnips to ever be put into a curry! On watching my wife try to eat this sorry effort of a Penang curry, I noticed that she was having to put on more and more salt. On asking her why she was putting on so much salt, she said why don’t you try it. On trying this so called ‘curry’ it would have put any diabetic into an instant coma. It was unbelievably sweet to the point of wondering if they’d decided to put in a whole kilo of sugar. I asked to see the supervisor, where the manager arrived. An extremely young lady came over and on discussing the ‘curry’ she and I both agreed that it was in no way a Penang curry, but more of a vegetable curry/stew. She said that she would speak to the chef. When the lady came out she asked how a Penang curry should be cooked. My wife started to answer, but understandably got irate as it’s not her job to tell a chef how to cook a dish. It’s the chefs job to look it up and cook correctly. My wife did express her unhappiness at that, however all we got back from this young lady was an inane ‘Bonnie Langford’ grin. In fact you could say that she was in no way contrite and it looked as if she really didn’t care about the situation. I did point out that they should remove the curry from their menu as it was a form of false advertising, but got the grin and a shoulder shrug and said that the owner was looking at changing the menu. The young lady asked if there was anything else, in a way that showed derision. I asked for the bill. On receipt of the bill, I noticed that the offending meal was still on the bill. Not wanting to cause any further problem or have to deal with the ‘grin’, I decided to pay the complete bill and leave. Please note, all we wanted to do was pass over friendly advice as to a fact. The fact that it wasn’t a Penang Curry and that the item should be removed from the menu. We weren’t expecting to be asked ‘how to cook the curry’ as if my wife had no clue to what she was saying or have no knowledge as to what a Penang curry was. Poor from the management team on how this situation was dealt with."