Croxley Green Harvester

Reviews

• Fresh fruit and friendly service

  We drove north of Watford towards Rickmansworth, past the Harvester at Croxley Green, a chain we know from two other branches. We were looking for a recommended pub, with home cooking, but the restaurant we were looking for was shut on Sundays. It was getting late. Better the devil you know, so suddenly the Harvester became far more desirable.We walked into the right and I asked for a table for three. A jolly girl told us that the bar area was on the right, restaurant seating on the left.A female member of staff told us to sit anywhere. We chose a big circular six-seater table with a semi-circular banquette at the back. It was late. The place was half empty. We weren't depriving anybody else of a table.Along came a young male member of staff and said, 'This area is closed.' I incredulously informed him that we'd just been told to sit anywhere. Granny apologized, and tried to rise unsteadily. She offered to move. She was about to stagger to another table. The man decided we could stay. He went to find a server for us. After he left, we had hysterics, imagining repercussions: 'You can sit anywhere, so long as you move.' 'You can sit anywhere, but if you want to get served food, you have to move.' 'Own up - who told them they could sit anywhere!'Toilets. The tiling is colourful. No hook in ladies toilet cubicle. I don't want to put my bag on the dirty floor. I manage to balance it on the lid of the cistern. DrinksThe usual wide range of drinks by the bottle and by the glass. I choose a pink zinfandel.For starters we select a good healthy melon. It is a mix of melon and watermelon with strawberries and blueberries. For dessert you can have the same mixture of melon on skewers, with strawberries. Plus pineapple. But no blueberries. Plus swirled ice cream.I am impressed by the oblong piece of emerald green banana leaf. I am used to having that on the plate, or instead of a plate, in Indian restaurants in Little India in Singapore.For a main dish I opt for a combo, a mixture of chicken and ribs. It comes with chips. I forgot to ask them to change the chips to baked potato in its jacket. Firstly I like baked potato which is less fattening. Secondly the chips are enough for two or three, so even if two or more of you want chips, you can have a baked potato in addition. We could have served ourselves from the salad bar as a starter. But we were so full we didn't even order more desserts.My son wanted a steak combo, steak with another meat. He could not find the combination so he had plain steak and still could not finish it. I asked for an espresso coffee. I didn't get brown sugar. But the milk I asked for came in a sensible size jug, twice the size of the teeny cup, not smaller than the teeny cup.At under £50 for three of us, including service, each eating two courses (Granny had soup and dessert), and a glass of something each, and one single espresso, that seemed reasonable value to me.We had arrived feeling sad and cross with ourselves and everybody else because we had not found our original restaurant. But we all left happy with our meal and each other. The server's first language is not English and she has thrown away her spectacles which gave her a headache. But despite the fact that as we order the three of us are all arguing with each other, and we all change our minds, she remained smiling to the end.Another good thing about the Harvesters, you usually get a nice, big car park.

  Angella
  Review Date: 04/09/2008 Report review