Lakeside Cafe

Food for Flanagan
The Lakeside Restaurant, Trenance Road, Newquay
With descriptions of ‘first class’ and ‘best in Newquay’ on trip advisor, one cannot help but head towards this café/​restaurant to experience the delights on offer. The Lakeside is, as it suggests, overlooking the lake with remote controlled boats, teams of ducks and a colony of gulls pruning themselves on the water banks. They are a delight to watch. I’m afraid in retrospect we would have been better served with a packed lunch amongst our feathery friends. Unfortunately due to some bizarre set up, the extremely small bar area had tables taken over by individuals eating desserts and drinking coffee following their meals. If one was to speculate, one would presume this can only be to turn tables as speedily as possible. However, not so satisfactory for us or those that want to enjoy a drink before the meal. We were then shown our table almost an hour before we were due to sit down. Here we were greeted with quite an unusual concept in my eyes previously iced water, already poured into four glasses, now full with condensation after the thawing process. When I asked if they belonged to the previous customers, I was addressed with quite a frosty response from the waitress, as though it was a completely imbecilic enquiry. I have eaten in many restaurants worldwide and I have never come across this before. There was a standard menu of brasserie style food with a clear board complete with daily specials. We each opted for one of the sunday roasts 3 chicken and 1 beef. I find it somewhat irritating that they assume the general public have a taste for Yorkshire pudding as it arrived unappetizingly limp on each plate, regardless of the meats ordered. I am afraid to say that the plate of food rather resembled some mediocre, microwavable meal, purchased from some below par supermarket. The whole plate was under-​seasoned, luke warm, and served with an abundance of overcooked vegetables, including cauliflower with singed edges. There must be a skill to that in itself! The chefs are clearly not following the standard rule of thumb. Taste, taste, taste’, as they would say on the Great British Menu. Accompanying these articles, loosely described as vegetables, was the meat. Both the cows and the chickens appeared to have died in vain I’m sorry to say. The rather anaemic, lifeless chicken leg lay pitiful on the plates. A rather unusual cut of meat to accompany a traditional sunday roast. What happened to the quality parts of the bird? Next to this I was saddled with my dry, rather distressed, overcooked beef, each a deck of cards in thickness and coated with fat. If you want a work-​out for your jaw I could highly recommend this plate, otherwise give it a wide berth. Thank heavens at least to our Spanish counterparts for providing us with a half decent bottle of Rioja and to the French for their Stella Artois contributions. At least it meant the petrol hadn’t been completely wasted. I would suggest that this place is big on location, but completely lacking on the food and hospitality front. I have seen tailors’ dummies with more expression! The front of house ‘lacklustre’ staff show a complete lack of charm and knowledge about the food on offer. I would be utterly embarrassed to serve that standard of food if it were my establishment. Notwithstanding, this tasteless experience comes with a high price tag for the quality received. Interestingly, I am just reading the Good Food Guide 2013, where they use a scoring system from 1 – 10 depending on the quality of food, ingredients, food and overall ambience. I would ‘guestimate’ this restaurant would lie somewhere way beyond –1, i.e. not capable of cooking, with more than a few inconsistencies. Simple food would be a good description by anyone’s standards simply awful! The only true consistency I could appreciate was how consistently unappetizing each plate of food looked coming from the serving hatch. Well done to one and all if this was the desired outcome. I would guess and hope not.

A lovely little caff right on the boating lake, this is a perfect place for a cuppa and a snack as you stroll around one of the more peaceful areas of Newquay. They also offer bags of snacks for the birds but this is only for the brave — once that bag is opened it turns into a scene from a Hitchcock film. No lie!