BITE user comments - Ridgeway.Rambler
Comments by Ridgeway.Rambler
The Elephant Hotel, Pangbourne
It's an hotel bar but it's better than most pubs. The beer is excellent (West Berkshire) and so is the food, the staff are cheerful and helpful (and competent) and there's a good pub garden.
10 Aug 2012 22:11
The Elephant Hotel, Pangbourne
It's an hotel bar but it's better than most pubs. The beer is excellent (West Berkshire) and so is the food, the staff are cheerful and helpful (and competent) and there's a good pub garden.
10 Aug 2012 22:11
Refurbed but no better. There are nice niche bars and all that but still no gaffer, staff who have been on the wrong course, food planned by an accountant and chilled, too many electronic tills and rubbish beer. The riverside location is good - until the boats arrive and all you can see of the river is twits in vests and tupperware floatabouts.
10 Aug 2012 21:02
A good refurbishment: cleaned and improved without being spoiled. Morlands, but decent enough beer - Oxford Gold and Mansfield ale - but only a reheat kitchen. Within five days of opening they'd run out of beef and ale pie, with no delivery for days (in some pubs they make their own pies) and the excellent batter of their fish and chips concealed small fragments of fish. Service will improve if they train the staff and install a second till but it's the only pub in Streatley and it needs a cook.
7 May 2012 14:37
I can walk to the Bell from where I live. It's four miles across country and I'm seventy but a very few things are worth it. The Bell is one of them.
19 Jan 2011 22:04
The decor is looking good - it took a while to mature but it's a handsome and welcoming place now. There's an array of chilled lagers and things but, since the cellar is air conditioned, even the West Berkshire beers are served cold anyway. Food is okay, if like the drinks on the higher price scale for what it is, but someone's had a word and she does smile now and then. It makes a difference.
19 Jan 2011 21:57
Lovely, comfortable pub off the beaten track. Decent beer, real pub food cheerfully and generously served. More mature customers clearly appreciate, and so do I.
1 Nov 2010 06:18
Still the best pub in Goring/Streatley. The low rating must be historical - it's laughable that the Bull at Streatley rates higher.
1 Nov 2010 06:02
They've done it up a bit so I went back. Nice pub, Ringwood bitter is okay; nice fire, unimaginative, substantial, reheat food served by substantial young people. As we left at 1:50pm on a wet Sunday, four hungry walkers arrived off the Ridgeway to be told the kitchen was closed. They hadn't missed much. Innkeeping needs innkeepers (try the excellently-run John Barleycorn across the causeway in Goring).
1 Nov 2010 05:55
Sad really. Order a pint and she demands to know if you will be buying a meal. When you count your change you may suspect that you've paid for one. She doesn't have to smile, and I don't have to go back.
10 Jun 2010 22:07
The George is alive again. It smells of a rescue operation to keep it going until someone with deep pockets can be found to take a long lease for scant reward, but it is a pub again. Not much on tap but food is sound; portions are generous and the cheapest around.
25 Mar 2010 08:30
Lovely little pub with good Brakespeare's and excellent food. The publican is from the Red Lion at Blewbury where he good-naturedly ran a splendid establishment with a fine pub kitchen. In Goring, where the Miller and the Wheel seem to be administered by absentee accountants and the Queen's Arms is all Sky Sport, it's a pleasure to see an affable Mine Host running a traditional pub.
25 Feb 2010 17:26
The refurb - awful in the interim - is settling in and is agreeable. The Good Old Boy is okay if you leave it to warm for a couple of minutes, and the antipodean chef is producing excellent food at less unreasonable prices (home-made faggots and mash, hand battered haddock and chips, etc). The proprietoress needs to recognise that affability hasn't damaged her staff so she might get away with cracking a smile now and then - bustling about with lighted candles might have been a reputation winner in Scutari but an affable gaffer makes a good pub.
25 Feb 2010 17:14
Quirky bar serving good West Berks beer at a sensible temperature. Overpriced restaurant, where skill conceals scarcity. Check your bill.
22 Jan 2010 11:16
The Elephant Hotel, Pangbourne
Charming village bar serving excellent local beer and good food. There's something unsatisfactory about looking through a doorway and seeing the lush foyer of an hotel, but it's the best bar in Pangbourne (it's where the people who own horses go), and closer to the car park than the Cross Keys (where the grooms go).
22 Jan 2010 10:30
Poor mangement policies and mediocre food a year ago meant I did not return until a few days ago, when the bar was jovial with locals, the fire burning, newspapers and good snacks were available and an excellent atmosphere prevailed. Ruddles, Greene King IPA and Abbott have been good beers in the past but it's not much of a lineup in West Berkshire Brewery country. Still, they serve hand cut chips and decent wine - and oysters at the end of the week.
21 Jan 2010 05:57
The more other pubs I go into, the more I appreciate the Bell. They only need to get their values wrong once and the last bell will have been rung in a unique and wonderful establishment. I hope I go before that happens.
16 Dec 2009 09:57
Rumour has it that a fair bid is in for the Beehive, to restore it as a decent community pub now the Red Lion has gone all self-conscious. Unfortunately the owner has a distorted view of its value. Hey ho.
16 Dec 2009 09:48
When I was young, this was how pubs were. Chaucer understood them, as did Shakespeare, Dickens, Mann and Chesterton. What a pity big brewers and daft tarts with home economics degrees don't. Bless you, honest innkeeper. Your beer's too cold but your heart's in the right place.
15 Dec 2009 22:24
The Chequers Arms and Sweet Olive Restaurant, Aston Tirrold
Well-run pub where customer demand for the skilled kitchen has pushed the bar into second place. Amiable management still cheerfully pulls pints but most people come for some of the best food in the region. Not cheap but good value. Without fear or favour, a brilliant asset to the area.
12 Oct 2009 08:29
I feared the slippery slope and it has come to pass: a well-meaning refurb and another excellent pub has been wrecked. Charming staff and good beer don't obscure the trendy timber floor and the sweetshop counter masquerading as a bar; then lesser niggles become more important: the beer is chilled like lager and the food is overpriced. Twelve quid for chicken and chips? Sad.
21 Sep 2009 08:34
There is something odd about reviews for the White Lion. It's a good pub in a region where good pubs are common, and the food's okay, but it doesn't deserve anything like an average of nine out of ten, or the sexist hyperbole; and Greene King's vapid beers don't require much cellar skill. Just a touch of Afghan electioneering, perhaps?
17 Sep 2009 15:36
Something's gone wrong. I hear it's up for sale - certainly the kitchen seems unco-operative and the food overpriced for what it is. Beer's still okay and the bar staff too, but locals are muttering. Surely not the slippery slope for what was an excellent pub?
18 Jun 2009 14:24
Well, some interior decorator has triumphantly inserted the Compton Swan in her portfolio and one is tempted to tell her where to put the entire project. Drab, posey and pretentious, it's not a pub, it's not a restaurant and it's not a pleasure to go there. Greene King may not be the best but chilling it is killing it, and hiding the menu doesn't sell food.
28 May 2009 13:54
No, I think the cook and the cellarman must have both quit, or maybe they've run off together. It could be a cracking pub and a goldmine but right now it's just sad.
16 May 2009 18:26
It's a haven from rush and bustle but it's not a pub any more so I wouldn't go for a few pints - if it had rooms it would be an inn, and none the worse for that: excellent food well prepared, good beer well served, good menu, good wine list, no snobbery or pretensions, all intelligently served in a charming, unrefurbished old pub. The prices reflect the well-heeled catchment area but it's wise to book, so the customers like it and so do I. Brilliant.
16 May 2009 18:22
A proper pub with a proper gaffer behind the bar with other affable staff, taking an interest and caring about customers. Good food in generous quantities, Brakespear beers and relaxed locals enjoying a pub like they all ought to be. This publican should give masterclasses.
11 May 2009 09:35
Closest I've come to an 18th Century ale house: cramped, quirky, uncomfortable, but absolutely charming, with good, well-kept local beers and cider. Good bread-and-protein food (but why put banana on a Ploughman's?). Beloved of amiable walkers (it's on a footpath off the Ridgeway).
30 Apr 2009 12:40
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The Wheatsheaf, East Hendred
Dropped in to see what it was like and found gingham cloths on all the tables; Greene King; dead atmosphere. Must have been a lovely pub once.
16 Apr 2013 17:33