The Cottage Inn, Haxby

11:12am Saturday 3rd May 2008

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ALTHOUGH I drive past The Cottage Inn virtually every day, it's a place where we'd never had a meal.

We'd had a brilliant buffet there six years ago for our son Elliot's christening, so a visit to the restaurant, where we had heard good things, was long overdue.

The Cottage, now owned by the Chameleon Pub Group, is a traditional local, with spacious bars, a separate restaurant area and function room.

When we arrived, it was fairly busy, but not packed.

Our table for four adults and four children (which we had reserved) was in the far corner of the restaurant.

This would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that a number of our chairs were extremely close to the chairs of fellow diners. Every time Elliot twisted on his seat, the old lady tucking into her Sunday roast behind him was jolted forward.

After ordering from the bar, a selection of soft drinks and an extremely palatable bottle of Semillon/Chenin/Chardonnay blend (£10.95), we studied the rather extensive menu and the Sunday lunch specials.

We ordered. Then we waited, and waited. We were restless and ravenous, and so were the kids.

We tried to while away the minutes by holding a quiz on the flag colours of African nations, seeing who could blow their napkin the highest and doing a bit of doodling. Every time the kitchen door opened we prayed it was our food arriving, only to have our hopes dashed.

Eventually, our starters did turn up, but only after a good 30 to 40-minute wait. I know the food is freshly cooked, but we felt that sort of delay was too much.

The starters were, on the whole, pretty tasty. My wife Jayne and I shared a bowl of hot nachos (£3.95) - crunchy tortilla chips sprinkled with red onion and peppers and covered in melted mozzarella cheese. These were delicious.

Our friend, Richard, described his garlic mushrooms (£3.95) as "splendid". These consisted of baby button mushrooms sautéed in garlic butter, served in a light white wine cream sauce. His wife, Ruth, picked broccoli and stilton soup, quite reasonably priced at £2.95. It was creamy, hot and plentiful, but rather bland.

The delicious garlic bread got a thumbs-up though. The kids loved it. Each received a grilled baguette topped with garlic butter, tomato and melted mozzarella, and good value at £2.95.

After another fairly long wait, our main courses arrived.

I chose the steak kebab (£8.95) - seven cubes of rump steak on a wooden skewer with peppers and onions, which rested on a bed of saffron rice. Although the meat was well-cooked and tender, it wasn't very warm, and I wished I'd picked something else.

Jayne enjoyed her penne a la chevre (£6.95) - soft penne pasta covered in creamy goat's cheese. It was supposed to come with chargrilled vegetables, but these seemed to be in short supply.

Ruth, too, chose from the vegetarian menu. Her lasagne (£6.95) - made from Quorn mince and covered with béchamel and tomato sauce topped with mozzarella cheese, was okay, but nothing to write home about. It would have benefited from more vegetables mixed with the mince.

Elliot however had no complaints about his homemade crispy chicken nuggets, and Molly, eight, with her homemade beefburger in a bun. Both came with delicious homemade chunky chips. Her sister Lucy, six, was pleased with her sausages and creamy mash.

Richard enjoyed his traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (£6.95), which came with gravy and a tureen of fresh carrots, broccoli and sliced red cabbage. It would have been nice, however, to have been given a preference on how the meat was cooked. Talking of which We asked for a child's portion of roast beef (£4.95) for our three-year-old daughter Zara and were quite surprised when it arrived pretty rare. I know her favourite colour is pink, but I don't think she expected her beef to be like that. She had a go at chewing a piece, but it got stuck in a tooth and took her a good five minutes to get it out.

Puddings, however, were a big success. The delicious chocolate fudge cake with ice-cream (£3.25) was a hit with Elliot, Zara and me, while Molly rated her triple chocolate gateaux, also £3.25, as "a million out of ten", and Lucy couldn't get enough of her ice-cream.

We passed on the speciality teas and coffees ("brought to you by Ringtons"), and picked up the bill, which worked out at about £45 per family. Not too bad really.

It had been a long lunchtime, more than two-and-a-half hours from start to finish. This would have been okay for us grown-ups, happy to knock back the wine while waiting for our food, but not much fun for the kids, who were desperate to escape and let off some steam.

• Simon visited the Cottage Inn on Sunday, April 27, 2008

• The Cottage Inn, 115 The Village, Haxby, York.

Tel: 01904 763949.

www.cottageinnhaxby.co.uk