Swan Green, Emery Down
Lyndhurst
Hampshire
SO43 7DT

Tel: 023 8028 2203

Website: www.theswanlyndhurst.com

Vegetarian: Yes

Parking: Own car park

Wheelchairs: OK

Loos: Average

We decided to meet with friends in Lyndhurst for a reunion lunch.  Continuing with our quest for beat the credit crunch food we decided on The Swan because they were advertising 2 meals for £10!

The Swan was completely re built fairly recently after it was destroyed by fire and only reopened last Summer.  The interior is the usual olde worlde look with lots of wood and plain brick walls.  On the day we visited it was really cold and not much warmer inside!

The menu has a lot of choices (check out their website) and in the middle the selection of dishes that are 2 for £10 plus there is a specials board.  I am afraid that as soon as I  saw on the menu they were offering a choice of potato with the pasta dishes the alarm bells started to ring!  You could say what do you expect for this sort of money BUT if you look at some of our reviews it is possible to eat cheaply and well, also all of these dishes are on sale as single items but priced at say £8.95 for lasagne so not that cheap!

You order your food at the bar but then you are served.  There seemed to be only 2 members of staff on duty, the young man who served us was very pleasant but he had a lot of customers to deal with so we waited a long time.

Two of us chose liver & onion casserole, one steak & kidney pudding, served with carrots, cauliflower, peas and choice of potato, one a chicken pasta and the last choice a country pate ploughman's.  Two of us followed with apple pie and the only other choice was spotted dick all served with choice of either custard or ice cream.  The puds are very good value at about £3.25 as the price includes a coffee.  To be fair I was the only one that was not happy at all with the food (apart from the puds) so I have given it a 2 the others, the majority, thought it "OK"! 

The bill for the 5 of us and it included a bottle of Pinot Grigio was £53 so no wonder they are busy.

Ladies Who Lunch Scoring:

Quality of food
Variety of menu
Staff and service
Ambience, setting and decor
Value for Money

Total Yummy Factor

5/5 = Cannot be improved upon, 4/5 = Very good, 3/5 = Good,
2/5 = Satisfactory, 1/5 = Poor, 0/5 = Terrible

The higher the "Yummy" factor, the better the food & service. The higher the number of £ signs the more expensive. (Roughly one £ sign = £5 per head)