East Dorset
Al Trullo

Al Trullo

60 Ringwood Road, BH31 7AJ, East Dorset, United Kingdom

Pizza • Pasta • Steak • Italian


"Moved into the area recently and was recommended this place to try locally as the only Italian within a long distance. Rang up for a booking a couple of days before and was completely full but they managed to squeeze us onto the terrace which was good of them and it was a nice day outside. Service was good, nice waiting staff and were chatty with us throughout. They have ravioli on the menu so were going to order but just wanted to check it was homemade. Waitress said it wasn 't, they used to but don 't anymore and these are bought in frozen. We decided to order a carbonara instead as its a good benchmark of how any Italian will be and how authentic the cooking also. Unfortunately it was not authentic, it was extremely creamy and flavourless, most definitely had cream added to the sauce and was disappointing. For main I had the fillet steak and fries and it was not great. Hadn 't had a chance to rest and was leaking all over the plate and just wasn 't a great piece of mate, had a grey look to it and I would suggest it had been frozen at some point which showed in the taste. For the price I 'd have hoped for better. My wife had a pizza which was cooked pretty well and seemed freshly made dough and done pretty well in the pizza oven, if we come back we will only go for the pizzas next time. We tried a desert as was assured they 're homemade so went for the tiramisu which was really nice. Would probably return if at a push but my tip is you can make most of the pasta better yourself at home so only go for the pizza and desert."

Cinnamon

Cinnamon

52 Victoria Road, East Dorset, United Kingdom, BH22 9HZ

Kebab • Cafés • Indian • Asiatic


"As a family we decided to go try Ferndowns #5 restaurant... We walked in and asked if there was a table as we hadn 't booked. After a minute of waiting we were told the table in the window was available for us. As soon as we had sat down a waiter asked if we 'd like poppadoms to which having been put on the spot I just ordered 1 each for the family (3 of us). Had I have seen the price I 'd have likely not bothered as I was billed for two lots of pickles... For three popadoms! That aside I had to ask three times to get a menu, the writing was on the wall at this point and should 've paid for the poppadoms and left! We eventually ordered and despite the restaurant being moderately busy it took 55 minutes to get our meals. Mine and my sons were visibly not hot, I touched the bottom of the ceramic bowls the curry was served in and they were Luke warm at best, clearly had been sat waiting for the third main to be cooked and had not been under a heat lamp. If I was to guess the temperature I 'd say they were 35-40°C which is certainly way below the hot holding temperature! I work in the food industry so can tell. I cut off a little piece of chicken from both of the COLD curry dishes to try and I can confirm that they were way too cold... I asked for these two meals to be recooked and the manager who had been brought over by the waiter which didn 't speak English to see what we wanted... He offered to reheat these in the microwave which I said was unacceptable as these had been in the danger zone for an unknown period of time. He agreed to have them freshly cooked, five minutes later two replaced microwaved dinners returned. How can I tell? Because the two pieces of chicken I cut into were still present. I then had to ask for cutlery and a plate... Having had to wait so long for such a disappointing meal was the icing on the cake, Completely lack lustre in flavour, also asked for the bhuna masala (their chicken tikka masala as a mild from their mild, medium or hot) and it turned up pretty spicy, considerably spicier than the hot curry I had ordered. I would suggest this restaurant spends less time cutting fancy shapes out of onions and learns about hot holding temperatures, safety management systems and how to cook a decent BIR curry. A 1 star rating is too kind. I don 't appreciate walking out of somewhere £80 lighter for potential food poisoning. On a plus side the pint of Kingfisher was cold. Avoid."