A garden centre isn't the first place that springs to mind when it comes to getting a Sunday roast, but there's one place that has diners queuing in their droves for exactly that.
I was well aware of the popularity of the dining options at Bents Garden and Home, but I'd previously only popped in for a sandwich or a cake.
Having seen that its Winter Food Market had returned, selling Yorkshire pudding wraps and other festive favourites, I decided to head along to the venue - just off the East Lancs Road, near Leigh, Wigan, - with my family to grab a bite to eat.
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Unfortunately for us it seemed half of Greater Manchester had the same idea and there was no seating left in the market area at all.
Instead we made our way into the Fresh Approach dining hall, where we were handed a menu and told if you want hot food, which we did, then find a table before ordering from the counter and then the food will be brought to the table.
It all sounded straightforward enough. The hot food choices were quite limited, but we all found something we liked and in fact three of us opted for the same thing, a roast turkey breast ciabatta, while our youngest wanted chicken goujons.
With myself and my daughter getting the short straw of ordering it was then that the problems began.
Firstly, people. Just people, everywhere. One queue for cake, a queue for hot food, a queue for cold food, and all of them seemingly intertwining.
It was like some sort of human Spaghetti Junction, made up of people questioning their life choices by intensifying their Sunday afternoon this way, but keeping one eye on the prize - food!
That's when the next problem arose. The most disappointing Chinese whisper filtered along the queue - 'we're out of turkey'.
My daughter reluctantly decided on a children's sausage and mash instead, at 14 she obviously thinks she's no longer a child, and then dashed off to check with her dad what he wanted instead.
By the time she returned with his choice of a cold sandwich - (separate queue, not a chance in hell) - I'd discovered they were in fact still doing a roast dinner, just beef not turkey. Hallelujah. It wasn't on the menu, must have been the daily special, but who cares.
And from what I could see of those being made up, with giant Yorkshires on the top, they looked gorgeous. Plus, the absence of turkey meant they were offering pigs in blankets with the beef instead.
The bit about 'order at the counter and we'll bring to the table' didn't appear to be happening. I was given the children's meals, which sat on the trays going cold for 10 minutes, while they dished up the roast dinners and then, you guessed it, we queued - for the till this time.
Wanting to avoid any more queuing I asked could I order desserts here too. The answer? 'well, yes, but not all of them'. It turned out I could order the Biscoff cheesecakes to come to the table, but I'd have to queue separately for the carrot cake.
Perhaps it was my face saying what my mind was thinking, but at this point the cashier offered that her colleague would go and get the carrot cake for me 'to make it easier'. Thank goodness for that.
But the real fun started when we sat down. Finally tucking into our food - our beef dinners delicious and the standard you'd expect from a high end restaurant, but sadly the children's a bit sad and cold by this point - what was to arrive at our table? The two children's dinners.
We looked confused, the waitress looked confused.
Five minutes later and a separate waitress was just as confused when she arrived holding two cheesecakes and put just one on the table, with the second one meant for someone else.
Having explained we ordered three she returned a few minutes later with the remaining desserts. Phew!
Apart from the issue of the kids' dishes getting cold, we had no complaints over the food itself.
In fact the beef dinners were worth every penny of the £14.95 they cost. As were the cheesecakes, costing £5.50 each. With a main, a dessert and drink each, the total bill came to £76.15 for the four of us - more than you'd expect to spend eating at a garden centre, but this place is much more than that.
The garden centre is beautiful all year round, but even more so now it's decked out for Christmas.
The food certainly meets the high expectations that Bents customers have come to expect. It's just a shame that getting it is such an ordeal.
We contacted Bents with the details of our visit. This was their response.
"Thank you for contacting us regarding your dining experience at Bents and we are sorry it did not meet the high levels of service we aim to deliver. We work very hard to make sure our customers always have an enjoyable experience with us so we have looked into your feedback to ensure we can improve for the future.
"Turkey has proved to be a very popular choice, with lots of customers embracing the festive period, and whilst we try to ensure we have enough supplies we are sorry that you were unable to order your first choice. However, we hope the beef, which was on our specials menu, was a good alternative.
"We aim to ensure all of our food, including our Biscoff cheesecake which is made to order due to dietary requirements, is freshly prepared to order which is why there may be some differences in delivery times, but we work hard to try and ensure this is kept to a minimum and can only apologise for your experience due to our dining areas being so busy.
"We are working hard with our colleagues to ensure we continue to deliver the very best service possible during the festive period."
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