We had passed the Harvester just by Arnos Grove tube station so many times over the past couple of decades and always noted that there was the potential of a bargain meal out. Nothing fancy, but very fairly priced. The one we had previously patronised some twenty years ago is now a Tesco mini store, and had been somewhere we could reliably visit with children and escape with our wallets intact, and a fair feed.
I learn that Harvester is part of a crop of restaurants and pubs run by Mitchells and Butlers and includes diverse names such as Toby inns, All bar One and Browns. My take on Harvester is that it is a restaurant in a pub type venue rather than a pub with restaurant (which is how I see JD Wetherspoons) and according to their web site, they specialise in grilled food and serve 25 million meals each year. The USP for Harvester is that they have the free salad bar, and fixed price formula meals. By way of Internet vouchers, we were entitled to one free starter from a limited list or a free Sundae (which was really mostly ice cream), and a voucher for unlimited soft carbonated drink from a limited list. Other drinks are at Bar Prices.
For our starter we had spicy breaded crackerjack king prawns
We'd actually eaten most of them by the time this picture was taken, but they are a crispy fried coated prawn, not particularly spicy by our standards, but hot and tasty scoring a 7.8 on the CHOF scale. The dip is chilli, ginger and spring onion, but is not overwhelming. All meals have the calorific values stated, and this was 322 kcals (accurately presented)
For main I had an 'original combo'.
This is chicken, which is under a baby rack of pork ribs, a portion of sweetcorn and fries, coming in at 1097kcals (scary). There was also the salad cart (nothing special), rolls and butter etc included. The ribs were probably the best bit of the meal being moist, tender, well cooked and flavoured. The chicken was spit roast rather than grilled, and was properly cooked. The corn was fine, but was too cold to melt any butter.
Whilst you can see the cooks at work, I did not pay attention to the assembly of this meal, and its components had different CHOF valuse from 7.5 (corn) to 8.8 (chicken and chips). There was also a barbecue sauce, which I did not use. My wife's chicken was also cooked well, and had no adverse comments.
The bill could not really be worked out because of the vouchers, but would probably come to about £12 without drinks per person.
I think the Wetherspoons offering is probably a bit more edgey with a greater choice and cheaper, but here you are sat down in a proper restaurant and served (Rather than having to pick up from the bar), you don't have to pay up front, and it has a family restaurant feeling rather than a pub feeling. Take your choice for the bargain of your choice.
We felt that we had had a very competitively priced meal of good quality. With that many meals served in the whole group, I dare say that Mitchells and Butlers have figured out how to make their formula work.
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