The Blue Ball At Braunston - Country Pub

No idea why we have never been before as is only 2 miles out of Oakham but we'll be back. Friends told us that they now offer a fixed price 1-3 course menu so we thought we'd give it a try and were knocked out by the delicious homemade bread, our crab and salmon starters, Barnsley Chop and Mackerel mains, bread and butter pudding and Panacotta desserts - brilliant value at £16.95 each for any three courses - that we lingered for a coffee and brandy by the fire afterwards but would happily pop back back midweek when don't fancy cooking for just a main course at £9.95. The varied menu made it hard to choose and when we saw the dishes being delivered to tables around us, we wondered if we should have gone for a steak or risotto but, when they arrived, we were delighted with our choices. We arrived to a friendly greeting, were swiftly served drinks, given menus and seated at a lovely window table. There were a few locals chatting in the bar, decent but low key background music and the whole place is a warren of beamed rooms. Service was professional but personal - a bit of chat but not too much - and each course only reinforced our impression that this place knows and loves food.

Having planned my route back to university i decided to take my mother here...as it sounded nice and was off the beaten track.
as we approached all looked lovely, and we were even happily suprised to find a live jazz band playing. However, this is where the magic ended.

Possibly due to the band, the manager (who was plonked behind the bar, and had been surly on the ohone when we tried to book) eventually fetched us some drinks - and despite having "booked" we were left in the louge to look over the menu.

This would have been fine - the place seemed packed - if we'd only been left for 10 minutes.
An HOUR later we were asked our order (whilst still sat in the bar area) and were told that NOTHING on the menu was gluten free!?
We were then left again for anouther 25mins...meaning we'd waited, with no offer of more drinkks, for nearly an hour and a half despite booking.

When we were eventually taken through to the next door room we were shocked to see a) a basically empty room (why had we been waiting so long?) and b) the empty tables still had dirty plates and glasses on them.

We werent offered water or drinks when initially sat down (or ever), and then waited ANOTHER 20 mins for any form of food to appear! the food itself was okay...but cant have taken all that time to cook!
When we left the waitress didnt even attempt to clear away most of the stuff on our table, and the manager was very uninterested when we came to pay the bill.

All in all a very dissapointing trip.
Lazy disinterested staff. No concept of time management, manners or cleaning. The manager just seemed like he wanted to sit and watch the band.