Bay Tree

This was one of the most bizarre places I’ve ever eaten! We popped in for lunch one Saturday having not found anywhere else that looked worth trying. You enter the restaurant down a staircase and once you get to the bottom and see the 70s finery it’s too late to escape The place is definitely stuck in a time warp, with gingham table cloths, French café posters and plastic ivy around a trellis. The kitchen staff clearly visible from the restaurant were well into their third age as was the waitress, and it all felt a bit two soups if you know what I mean! (Search for two soups sketch on YouTube if you don’t!) As well as the tables there’s a small bar area (sans stools), a huge array of alcohol and a never-​ending soundtrack of songs from the shows. The menu was fairly standard ham and egg, fish and chips, salads, that kind of thing. However, on the other side of the menu was a list of shots including some with highly suggestive names I dared my boyfriend to ask the aging waitress for a Blow Job but he didn’t quite have the bottle! We had to wait a fair while for our fish and chips, which was actually very tasty. Some other customers next to us had salad though, and it left a lot to be desired three lettuce leaves, some slices of cucumber, a chopped tomato and a teaspoon of some pink stuff (prawn mayo I think) or a slice of sandwich ham might have constituted a decent salad 30 years ago but doesn’t cut it now and when they asked for salad cream it came in a Tesco Value bottle! We found the whole experience amusing, especially when some other customers asked for the salad cream, which was whipped away from the original table and then was apparently empty, as we listened to the farting noise of the bottle being squeezed for the next few minutes!
Going back up the stairs after our meal, we were quite relieved to find that actually it was still the 21^st century If you want the time warp experience yourself give it a shot, for a laugh if nothing else but be quick, for I’ve since found out that the place is up for sale, having been run by the same family for the last 40+ years.