No burning desire to go back to this freezing pub with hit-and-miss food

I really should have seen it coming. It’s never a good sign when you arrive in the car park and drive right in to the space nearest the door.

But I’d heard great things about Red Burn Farm and was determined to see it through.

Now I wish I’d stayed at home. The place was empty and cold. Freezing, in fact.

It may well have been colder at our table than in the barren wasteland of a car park.

The few staff we saw were friendly but rushed off their feet trying to serve the very few punters who were there.

Note to management – a near- skeleton staff on a weekday night is never a good idea, especially in the run-up to Christmas. The pub is part of the Farmhouse Inns chai n , who have 63 outlets in t h e UK , with seven in Scotland. Protocol is that you order and pay for your food at the bar.

By the time I’d done that, my pal had found a thermostat and turned the heating up. Happy days…or so we thought.

Our Australian Yellow Tail shiraz (glass for £ 3.99 or £12.99 per bottle) was also going down nicely. But things were only set to improve slightly. The prawn cocktail starter at £4.79 couldn’t have been any bigger. But the chicken wings platter, also £4.79, was deep fried to oblivion and dried up.

The carvery main meal at £ 6.59 was a hit, mainly because you could select your own roast meat (turkey, beef and ham), veg and gravy from the counter. But the smoked bacon and cheese burger, £7.39, had a slice of slippy, bright-orange processed cheese on top, which put me right off.

We’d been told the “cakeaway” service at the Red Burn was legendary and vowed to take a sweet treat home with us. They boast that their desserts (which are at least a foot high) are freshly made in the pub.

But af ter paying £ 4.49 a slice for carrot cake and Eton mess roulade, which looked spectacular in the cabinet, we were handed two pre-packed slices in plastic containers which bore no resemblance to those on display.

Even the dog wouldn’t eat the Eton mess, which was filled with synthetic cream and curiously had no meringue in it at all.

Red Burn has gone downhill since it opened to rave reviews in 2015. Or maybe we just caught it on a bad night. Sadly, we’re not about to hurry back to check.