The Regent Hotel Doncaster
By Christopher Tait

Being told that I could find one of the biggest and best Yorkshire puddings going and it was only just a 30 minute drive up the road then that was like putting a carrot in front of a donkey for me.

My informer was put to work booking a table for 4 in the restaurant and off we went.

The Regent Hotel is situated in the middle of Doncaster and is easy to get to from all routes into the town. There is a small car park at the back of the hotel but this can get very busy from diners as well as guests at the hotel. Fortunately there is lots of on street parking close by.

We confirmed our booking on arrival and we were seated in a small bar area just outside of the restaurant. This gave us time to look at the menus. You could choose a 4 course dinner for £11 or 2 course dinner for £9. Or you could just have the roast dinner for £6.95 but in the bar and not in the restaurant. We opted for the 4 course dinner.

Starters were 2 soups of the day (Mushroom), one melon and sorbet and one deep fried camembert cheese with cranberry sauce. All very good size portions and well presented. All were lapped up. The second course is the house specialty which is a giant homemade Yorkshire pudding with rich onion gravy. The Yorkshire were certainly large but a little light for my tastes. The onion gravy was superb though.

For the main course we all opted for roast pork. This was served with roast and mashed potato, carrots and leeks, broccoli and cauliflower. The roast pork was delicious but there wasn't any crackling with it. The Yorkshire pudding that came with the roast dinner was smaller in size and had a better consistency that the super sizeds ones that they served as the appertiser. We all agreed that the mains were excellent and there was lots of veg to go around the four of us.

For dessert – yes we just managed to fit one in – was one chocolate fudge cake, one lemon tart, one white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake and one strawberry gateaux. Each dessert seemed to be home made unlike a lot of establishments that let the diner down with the desserts these were high quality and served with a large jug of double cream.

The Regent Hotel was an excellent choice for a Sunday dinner and at £11 for the four courses I believe that it was excellent value for money. The hotel was very well decorated and the dining room looked very nice but was very warm. The staff were very helpful and professional. The only negative points that came from the day was that the larger served was not cold enough and that the pork lacked the crackling that we would have liked.

I would not hesitate to return to The Regent Hotel for their Sunday dinner.