I can usually find something positive to say about a meal, but The Pledwick has left me stumped.The pub had recently been refurbished when we visited (not to my taste, but they've clearly spent some money on it). The menu on the website "talked the talk" offering good food. Perhaps I should have turned away when I saw the table decoration - hard to describe - but basically it was a glass filled with sand and gravel with a few rosemary sprigs stuck in the top.

To start, I ordered "baked Camembert with a bread platter" - this was turned out to be microwaved Camembert (arrived less than five minutes after ordering, hot in the middle, cold at the outside - clearly not baked) and a side plate with 4 slices of mediocre bread. The top was charred a little as if somebody had waved a blowtorch over the top - not sure why. It was sent back for another few seconds in the zapper, and did at least return hot. It was supposed to come with "caramelised onions", these weren't there but there was some kind of jam in their place.

My main course was "award winning local sausages and mash with an onion gravy". Not a challenging dish to do well, but unfortunately they failed here too. I have no idea what award the sausages had won, but it clearly wasn't one for quality - these were unmistakeably cheap sausages. It didn't help that they were over cooked and split. The mash was bad. It had a really odd taste, which lingered for hours after the meal. As far as I can work out, it had been made with margarine. If anything, the "onion gravy" let the dish down - gravy from granules with pearl onions in does not make onion gravy in my book.

Services wasn't much better; the waiter was vaguely apologetic about the cold starter but forgot to bring drinks and then blamed a colleague for them not being delivered.