I’ve eaten in many an Oxford restaurant, a number of which I’ve reviewed. A large number of restaurants are average, some are brilliant, and a handful of them are utterly dreadful. It’s a very rare thing though for me to be physically shaking with anger upon leaving a venue.

On this particular occasion, I wasn’t intending to review, but the experience that followed made it impossible not to.

Lunch was planned at The General Elliot with two other mum friends and five kids between us, having read that a local restaurant critic would happily sell a kidney for their food. Table booked for noon and high chairs ordered, we arrived to an empty pub, save for two people talking across the bar. With no hint of acknowledgement from the Bar Lady but our table in clear sight, we made ourselves comfortable and settled the kids in.

When the menus came finally came and after a faltering start trying to order drinks, with a number of choices unavailable, the selection looked to be safe but appealing pub fare – sharing boards, steak, fishcakes, pie, salads, etc. Upon trying to place orders however we found many of the items, again, to be missing. A brief mention of this at the time of the menus arrival may have been helpful and timesaving, or even a line through unavailable items. Menu choices reconsidered, Mum1 opted for steak, chips and peas, Mum2 for chicken caesar salad, myself for scampi and chips. For the little ones pasta, sausage & chips and chicken goujon & chips, with a request for bread to keep them occupied until the food arrived.

Bread going down well, though slow to arrive, it seemed to be taking even longer for the mains. While I recall mention of the food being all cooked fresh, we could have cooked it twice over during the time taken. Everyone was getting rather antsy by this point, especially the children.

Finally the food arrived. Children happily tucked into their hearty portions, Mum1 was somewhat confused by the steak on toast with lettuce and FIVE chips sat before her, not a pea to be seen, Mum2 poked below what looked like a mound of chicken to find it was actually a mound of lettuce with some chicken on top, while I was fairly happy with the scampi.

Mum1, upon asking if it may be possible to have a few more chips (my youngest had more then double the number on his plate) and the promised peas, was furnished with an entire serving bowl full of each. Nice save, if a little overcompensatory. But steak on toast, with five chips? Odd. They weren’t even those jenga style huge stacking chips.

Approaching TWO HOURS in, we were finally nearing the end of our meals. What with the order delays, then food delays and corrections, it had been a pretty dragged out meal and the kids were beyond bored by this point and in need of some fresh air.

Right at the point we were starting to clear up, an unannounced man abruptly advised us that there was a lot of ‘screaming’ coming from our table and that there were other guests (of which we could see two). Upon highlighting our disbelief, his response was “well, if you can’t control your children…”.

As you can imagine, this wasn’t what a group of mums dealing with restless, bored and agitated children needed or wanted to hear. We weren’t particularly enjoying ourselves either, given the circumstances. The gentleman finally announced himself as the owner and added that he thought “that might be for the best” upon comment from Mum2 we would not be returning, before taking his leave with a mumbled throwaway comment of some sort.

We packed up quicker than you could order something that wasn’t available, paid the bill in full – on which we had also been overcharged – and took our leave. The children never did receive the pudding which was offered as part of the kids menu, but frankly it was a sacrifice we were more than willing to make.

Sell your kidney to eat there? I’ll keep mine intact thank you very much and pop down the road to The Fishes or White Hart instead. While it may be the encounter that left me seething, it’s the unremarkable food and disorganised service that will ultimately keep me away.