Ad disclosure: We were provided with a Toby Carvery voucher for the purpose of this post.
December has been a really busy month – in fact motherhood in general seems to be a very busy “occupation” with so much to juggle; keeping on top of the laundry, making sure your children have everything they need for school, squeezing in time for work and maybe even the odd moment for yourself.
Toby Carvery, “Home of the Roast,” invited us to come along and have a meal one evening to make life a little bit easier… to help cope with a “manic mumday” by not having to prepare or clean up after an evening meal.
We headed over to our local Toby Carvery in Kings Norton and all enjoyed their four roast carvery. James opted to go “king size” with extra meat, an extra large yorkshire pud, and chipolata sausage added to his plate – which he then couldn’t finish, although he enjoyed it very much!
Lydia as she is still under 3 could have a toddler plate and shared our dinner – James loaded her up with meat from his plate and plenty of her favourite veg. Georgie went for the children’s meal deal which got her a small plate from the carvery, she chose turkey to eat, and I went for a “bit of each” regular sized carvery and loaded up on the roasted potatoes, parsnips & cauliflower cheese – my favourites!
We had two sides between the four of us; cheesy garlic bread, and honey & mustard chipolatas. The cheesy garlic bread was great with no scrimping on the cheese here – Lydia, who is a garlic bread connoisseur at the age of two, adored it. The honey & mustard chipolatas were nice but the mustard sauce was more like a bath they were dunked in rather than a glazing or coating as the menu implied – nice but very strong so I had to scrape off the excess a bit!
The girls had a fruit shoot each, and James & I went for bottomless soft drinks. They have cool touch screen drinks machines which will do Pepsi, Lemonade etc with twists which is something new & fun since we last ate at a Toby. The restaurant was nicely decorated for Christmas, and the food all tasted great.
The desserts were amazing, but huge – James and I could have easily shared one after our large meal, as neither of us managed to finish one – James opted for the Blackcurrant Eton Mess, and I went for the Banoffee Sundae, as I’m a complete Banoffee addict. Lydia had the ice cream dessert from Georgie’s meal deal, while Georgie created her own sundae which was a lot of fun.
It wasn’t offered to us when we arrived with kids, but when asked they did have a hodgepodge of kids cutlery for us to choose from for the girls to use. Georgie does prefer her sets to match but she was happy to use these.
The only really disappointing thing about the meal was the service – although friendly and helpful, the staff were busy and everything took a long time – it was quite long between being seated and asked for our drinks & sides orders, and the wait for our table to be cleared and our desserts orders to be taken was quite long too.
I understand that at this time of year they can be busy with large parties etc, but it wasn’t too bad in there when we were there, and they should expect to be busy and hire holiday staff to prepare. We were lucky that both girls were in a good mood and we had brought some sticker books to help keep them entertained, as otherwise it could have been a bigger problem.
Overall it was a lovely evening out and we came home absolutely stuffed full, we had visited before and will definitely be visiting again, it’s a great place to eat with family & we have taken my parents there before when they’ve been staying. The girls both enjoyed their meals, and Georgie really enjoyed trying out all of the puddings!
Fellow Brum-based blogger, Brummy Mummy of 2, made a video in partnership with Toby Carvery to demonstrate just how manic life can be on a fairly normal day…
