We took a day trip to Holmfirth today to make the most of the glorious weather and to see the locations where The Last of the Summer Wine was filmed. At precisely noon, we stopped at The Cheese Shop for lunch.
We were seated outside beneath the veranda, enjoying the shade and the dappled sunlight filtering through, and soon ordered our drinks and food. Mrs Wanderer chose the cottage cheese, cherry tomato and pesto bruschetta, while I opted for the rare roast beef toastie with blue cheese.
Everything started well enough. We waited around half an hour for our meals to arrive, which I suppose demonstrates that the food is prepared to order. My toastie was perfectly acceptable, although a little greasy due to the generous amount of melted cheese.
Unfortunately, Mrs Wanderer’s meal was less successful. She described the topping as delicious and full of flavour, although the pesto was noticeably less generous than the menu description suggested. The real problem, however, was the toasted sourdough. It was rock hard and virtually impossible to cut with a knife. She persevered through about half of it before eventually giving up, scraping off the topping and eating that separately.
When I went to pay, I was asked how the meal had been, and I gave an honest account of our experience. I genuinely don’t know what had happened to the bread. It wasn’t over-toasted in the usual sense; it was simply inedible. In fact, tapping it with a knife caused the plate to ring.
To his credit, the young man behind the counter apologised and removed the cost of the bruschetta from the bill. That gesture was appreciated and went some way towards addressing the issue.
For that reason, I’m awarding three stars. While there were positives, particularly the friendly handling of the complaint, the experience was disappointing enough that we’ll probably give it a miss in future.
The Willoughton Wanderer 
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