Meltons Too Damn Slow

Took the family to Meltons Too in York for Sunday lunch the other week.
Meltons Too is one of York's entries in the latest Good Food Guide. It regularly gets recommended in the Knowledge section of The Times, in the bit where they lift restaurant reviews from the Square Meal website. Recently they were plugging it as the top 'child friendly' restuarant in the north of England.

The food was nice enough. I had a creamy Whitby crab chowder gratin (which I assume was a nifty way of recycling the previous night's soup) and my husband had an exiguous portion of roasted vegetables which made him complain for hours about the quantities and how he could have made the same thing at home for a tenth of the price etc etc.

Problem was, it took 40 minutes to arrive, and that's after we waited 10 minutes to have our orders taken. So having arrived at one o'clock, into a not particularly busy restaurant, we didn't get anything to eat until ten to two. My two year old grew sad and pale. My baby shrieked. We gave them biscuits, and milk, thus ensuring they wouldn't be able to eat their dinner when it did arrive, which was a pity, because babies love roasted vegetables and creamy crab.

I like it when restaurants try to be family friendly. I can change a nappy on a few square inches of toilet floor, but a changing table in the loos still makes the job quicker and easier. It's good to have the option of child-size portions, and it's great when a restaurant is basically friendly to children and doesn't mind the odd toddler toddling around the room. But all these things are as nothing if you don't have speed. I hate to say it, but this is where MacDonalds scores ten out of ten and Meltons Too, two.