The Diary of a Foodie

These food blogs are made up entirely from my own personal views. I do not work for, or get paid by any of the establishments that I mention.
It is a personal account based on a personal experience, and should be treated as such.
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Saturday 28 August 2010

Border Gate/ Pub Food/Carlisle


The Border Gate, formerly known as Carrow House, is situated right on Junction 42 of the M6 Motorway. It has a Premier Travel Inn in the same car park.

Plenty of parking outside. Not easily walkable from the City Centre, but you could get a bus to Carlton and walk up the road.
This Pub used to be a Brewers Fayre, but has since changed ownership to "Table Table".



We often visit this Pub just for a drink or two, and occasionally a dessert :) The reason we like it is that it is all sectioned off into cute little areas with different styles of tables and chairs. So whether you fancy a big squashy sofa to sit on, or a proper dining chair, you can have it - and many other styles inbetween.


The food is OK, nothing special, but nothing offensive either. Portion sizes are a little small though.
They do a two for £10 menu on weekdays up until 6.30pm.

I went with my daughter and her friend for a little girly night out.
We started with a sharing portion of Dough Balls for two and a Garlic Mushrooms.

The Dough balls were very nice, squashy and garliccy and served with four dips - Olive Oil & Balsamic, Garlic Butter, Guacamole and Salsa.

The Mushrooms looked good, and were enjoyed.
I didn't fancy any of the Veggie Options, there was a good few to be honest, scattered over the menu - Quorn Chilli, Veg Lasanga, Pastas - but I fancied something different. I ended up choosing a Camembert from the starter menu, plus some Potato Wedges and we got an "Extra Feast" (Garlic & herb breaded mushrooms, battered whole onion rings and garlic bread) with no Onions :)


The Camembert was quite small, each piece was about 2" big, but tasty enough, and the wedges were nice. The garlic bread was nice, but it must have been laying on some sauce in the kitchen as the underneath was flavoured and soggy :(, and although we opted for no onions on the "Feast" we only got 5 mushrooms in total.
My daughter chose Bacon & Cheese Topped Chicken Breast, and opted for mashed potatoes - no salad. It cost £8.99 and when it arrived looked quite mean, she she is a little eater, and she did enjoy what she had, although the mashed potatoes didn't look all that appetizing.


Her friend had Scampi, came missing the Tartare Sauce which she hed been asked if she wanted, she just had it without as we couldn't catch the waitresses eye.


No pud for me, but the girls had tarts - one lemon and one chocolate.






The nice thing about the pudding menu is you can have a "tasting plate" where you can choose 3 different puds and you get a little bit of each - genuis idea !

It was table service throughout, which is nice, but there was long delay inbetween courses - 36 minutes between starters and mains. Also when people were leaving the tables were just not getting cleared. One family left as we arrived and their table was still not cleared when we left two hours later. One man sat down at a dirty table, the dishes were removed but the table wasn't even wiped for him ! We watched staff continually walk past the dirty tables, when all they had to do was grab a few plates - very odd !

The staff were very pleasant though.

Total bill, without a tip, came to £47 for two starters, three mains, two puds and 4 soft drinks.

Table Table has it's own website with the menu available to view...
And here is the contact details for the Pub itself.

The Border Gate
London Road
Carlisle,
Cumbria
CA4 0AD
0870 197 7054
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