Friendly staff and good food. Perfect.

I love the Bournemouth Steak house and like most of the customers have been going there for years - indeed my parents who also had a restaurant went there regularly and loved it too.

The decor is dated with faux beams and pictures of the bayeux tapestry but has a charm of it's own. The place is always cosy and very very friendly. Mario the original owner's son is fantastic with the customers and makes everyone feel important and very welcome. No wonder Harry Redknapp and his family go there regularly for polite and unobtrusive service and great food.

The menu hasn't changed for years - quality meat that is on display prior to being cooked. A large range of steaks cooked to your liking with a choice of potato and salad that always arrives first with the bread and makes an excellent starter in itself.

The restaurant is usually pretty busy any night of the week and I think this speaks for itself. A reliable good night out with friends and family can be had here, and you won't find the most greedy person complain that they didn't have enough to eat.

Although a work colleague had recommended its restaurant to me, I was very disappointed with the whole experience, from the heavy plates that loOKed like something you'd pick up in a jumble sale to the dreadful quality of the food. My niece had a prawn cocktail that came out of the 70's complete with little stainless steel bowl and a sauce that looked and tasted like it came out of a bottle. My White bait was actually very nice and crispy but the tartar sauce that came with it tasted of nothing but vinegar, as did the dressing on the salad. My niece enjoyed her beef stroganoff and my partner and sister said the veal was ok but the sauce was bland. In most restaurants one would pay for a selection of seasonal veg and this would be one price for the selection, however at the Bournemouth steak house you pay for every vegetable you order separately. Tough asparagus, frozen peas, etc very bad form! And the icing on the cake as far as the terrible food was my Tournedos Rossini. I asked for my steak blue but it came to the table medium rare, so I sent it back. By the time I got it back correctly cooked, my fellow diners had finished their meals so I had to eat alone. However I didn't bother to finish the meal as the dish was so badly done. The 'Toast' that should actually be a crispy crouton was so soggy it had turned to a vile white mush and i don't think it had even seen a toaster, whilst the pate was a low quality supermarket paste that did nothing to enhance the dish. The red wine sauce looked like black treacle and tasted of nothing I could easily recognise, and to top it all, the steak although at last cooked correctly, had the texture of something slightly stewed or beaten to a pulp to over tenderise it. It fell apart in a bad way! This was possibly the worst meal I have ever had in a restaurant. I told the waiter we were not happy with the food and his reply was that 'It's busy on a Saturday and you Can't expect all the dishes to be good' That says it all!