The Riverside Bar & Cafe in Maidstone

I was made aware of this lovely place from Visit Kent. Excellent coffee in a small friendly building with unusual decor. As well as cakes and snacks, there are items to purchase. Is was nice to be in a non chain coffee shop.

Can’t believe all these years living in Maidstone. And this was my first visit!! Lovely, friendly staff. Fantastic cheese and coleslaw tiger roll and gingerbread man.

Limited selection of hot food, the sausage rolls were hot and that's about it.

Excellent food and great service

Such a shame. Really liked the interior. Waitress was friendly and attentive and overall entering this place held lots of promise. Ordered the scampi and some bread rolls to start and the scampi tasted light and the tartar sauce was very tasty. The bread rolls came with butter and olive oil/balsamic. The rolls were fresh and the olive oil had a nice grassy taste. For mains we ordered two cajun chickens with half the cajun seasoning, the salmon and the seafood linguine. The chicken skin was a bit flabby and it tasted bland which may be partly due to the half seasoning but also the chicken lacked flavour. The chips were very nice but under seasoned. The seafood linguine had good flavour but the portion size was huge so the rich and creamy sauce became hard work due to the quantity. It was a shame because the seafood was cooked well and the baccus wine I had really cut through the creamy sauce but it was just too much. The salmon however was a disaster. The salmon had a pesto sauce which was not described on the menu, it came with sautéed potatoes which would not have been a problem but the menu said new potatoes which in every other place I've eaten means boiled new potatoes and the veg came up as a sort ratatouille type veg (it wasn't but it was a medley of cooked down veg) when the menu discribed mixed veg. There was also some sort of carrot puree which took up a quarter of the plate. And again a huge amount of food. The sautéed potatoes were over salty and not edible. At least half the plate was left and when the waitress was told that the food wasn't edible nothing was done. We pointed out this when the bill arrived and they took £6 off the bill which I assume was their assumed cost of the potatoes. Its a shame as this is in a lovely location and has potential to be a lovely fish restaurant but it needs a menu that accurately describes the food and if there are changes then a waiting staff that informs their customers. I also think there is work to do for the chef as the salmon dish looked like it had been chucked on the player while the salad for the chicken had been laid out piece by piece. There is also work to do on portion control which would also help the profitability of the business. Hopefully things will change as a good fish restaurant is a fine thing to have locally.