Review of Monachyle Mhor Hotel 4*

We visited 22nd June 2010 for the Gourmet Lunch Special as detailed on their website. First impressions were great, lovely location, fantastic day. You cant deny the hotel is situated in an ideal place (if a bit of a windy road to get to — could be better sign posted). We arrived at noon, had a choice of table which was great as we had our new daughter with us so we sat in one of the end rooms with a comfortable window seat which made it a bit more private for feeding the baby etc. However we were instantly put off by the number of flies/ wasps there were. My husband spent the first 20 mins trying to kill them all! Also the lunch menu wasn't ready even though it is advertised from noon onwards. Then came a slight confusion over the menu, we thought we had booked a special dining experience as written on the web site, but it was just the normal lunch menu. If we had decided to book lunch based on the sample menu on the web site we woulnd't have bothered. There were no forks on our table either which was such a basic thing to get wrong. As neither of us were drinking wine I would have expected all our wine glasses to be removed from the table, but we had to put them aside ourselves. The waitress managed to spill water over my knives when she was pouring but didn't offer to replace them so I had to dry them with my napkin. However we ordered lunch, my starter was fantastic (cauliflower mousse) however my husbands salmon starter was a bit of a let down. We both had the chicken breast to follow — the portion was small, must have been a very young chicken and the spinach was still a bit gritty (picked fresh from the garden? ) Cheese and desert that followed was fine. All in all I would have expected a higher quality of service and although the food was lovely it certainly wasn't the dining experience we had hoped for. For £25 a head and a considerable amount of petrol I doubt we will be back — pity.