The Thames Court

I hate leaving negative reviews, but our visit a couple of days ago, with friends who had travelled from Oxfordshire, was embarrassing for me in the end. We haven't been there for at least a year for various reasons, and not knowing quite what the weather was going to be like, I booked the round table in the window in the bar area, which used to be my favourite seat. There was only one guy behind the bar who was trying to deal with drinks and food, so quite a queue. We sat there for quite a while before we realised there was no table service in the bar even if you have booked. No problem, just ordered at the bar in the end. We had a gluten free lady with us and the waiter couldn't find a menu for her and had to go off and print one which took about 10 minutes. Two of us ordered the salmon fishcakes which were covered in huge breadcrumbs which I felt were going to break my teeth as they were so charred, but worse was the fact it was difficult to find any salmon amongst the mashed potato filling. Roll on pudding then. I went to the bar and ordered a gluten free cheesecake, one normal cheesecake and two chocolate orange domes. The barman went away and came back to say the cheesecakes, both normal and gluten free had only just come out of the freezer and were frozen solid (this was at 2pm)! I trundled back up the stairs to relay this dreadful information to my friends and the cheesecake orders changed to Eton Mess. Back down the stairs and wait my turn. Oh dear, no Eton Mess either. Back up the stairs to relay this bad news also. Eventually we all got what we had ordered - third time lucky - but my husband and I had not realised that the Chocolate Orange Dome was a weird plasticy ball with a tiny spoonful of orange sorbet inside. The Dome was edible but to charge £9.25 for this tiny dessert was ridiculous. We ended up paying nearly £200 for a meal we had to laugh about afterwards as it was so awful. I couldn't believe how run down the place is now, when my family used to love going there a few years ago. What else can I say, except we won't be back!

Very few gluten-free options, and there was a chip on my cup; fortunately, not too close to my mouth to affect me. Otherwise, I would have returned it. Our server tried her very best amidst the several errors today, including initially being given the wrong latte, but I will not be returning.