Dixies Restaurant and Pub

Wednesday, July 10th, 2019

Reviewed by Pascale Butcher

This is the kind of place you go to if you only eat to live. A couple of my fellow diners ordered the deep fried calamari strips. I don't know how it's possible when deep frying but the strips were pale and insipid looking. A vegetarian meal was ordered which consisted of 5 boiled baby potatoes which had not been scrubbed so they still had little stumpy bits on them; a pile of sauteed button mushrooms which looked to me like they had been cooked in a crowed pan because there was no colour on them and a few spoonfuls of pumpkin mash and creamed spinach. I didn't realise that restaurants still served that combination of vegetables - it's quite retro at this stage. I ordered the sirloin with Cafe de Paris butter and chips. The chips appeared to be frozen oven chips rather than proper fries. I'm not certain that what I was presented with was actually butter. It had the consistency of whipped cream; and as for a Cafe de Paris... I could spot garlic in it and maybe a herb but none of the other 6-12 ingredients that normally go in a Cafe de Paris. While the meat looked plump and appetising there was zero flavour. If I had been blindfolded I could not tell you what meat I ate. It could have been anything. The service from our waiter was the stand out of the evening. It would seem that after 40 years the complacency has crept in.