'We compared Toby Carvery with Farmhouse Inns and both deserve a roasting'

If there's one meal most of us Brits enjoy it's a traditional roast dinner. As the weather gets colder there's nothing quite like tucking into some meat and gravy with all the trimmings, or a veggie equivalent of course.

It's always a treat when someone else makes it of course, escaping the veg peeling and pot washing while someone else does the work instead.

But if you're going to splash the cash on eating out, you want it to be worth it don't you? Especially when most families are already trying to cut back.

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That's why we decided to compare two of the most popular places for a traditional carvery - Toby Carvery and Farmhouse Inns.

Both have a number of restaurants across Greater Manchester, and it seemed apt for our comparison to try out the two that are sited opposite each other, on either side of the A6 near Over Hulton, Bolton.

Pine Tree Farm is one of the more recent additions to Farmhouse Inns, having opened in 2017, and there's still a relatively new feel to the place, whereas the Watergate Toll Toby has been there as long as I can remember.

Our visit to Pine Tree was midweek, and although not quite as busy as our Sunday visit to Toby, where the Just Eat chaos made headlines of its own last week, it was a lot busier than you'd expect for a Tuesday evening - perhaps it was the weekly quiz pulling in extra punters.

It didn't take too long to order at the bar though and we were soon heading up to the help yourself carvery, which had no queue at all when we got there.

There was a choice of three meats - turkey, gammon or beef - and it was all nicely presented, the casserole dishes all well topped up with a