The Village, Salisbury

Still appallingly shabby (and the toilets still emit an unappealing hum on a warm night), but the quality of the beer remains.

Some nights now staffed by a dryly amusing Martin Clunes lookalike.....

4 Jul 2010 15:27

The Langton Arms, Tarrant Monkton

The wife and I have a sentimental attachment to this place, having had one of our first 'proper' dates here in September 2003. So this Valentines evening, we booked for food and went back. The new (to us, anyway) 'Stables' eating area is nicely done but lacking in character, and browsing the menu, with starters at anything up to �10 and mains up to �20, I expected a proper 'gastropub' experience commensurate with these prices and the occasion. I ordered crab souffle to start at �9.50, the missus had a mushroom medley kind of deal at �7. The crab was nice, but not �9.50 nice, and the mushrooms were mainly a handful of buttons on a virtually inedible piece of toast. For mains, the wife had faggots (having had them and loved them last time we ate here), which passed muster, but my game pie at the thick end of �15 was positively fraudulent. It had clearly been reheated and thus dried out, and had I been blindfolded I would not have guessed I was eating game. It all just tasted of overcooked steak. It came on a bed of mash, which had also received no care or culinary skill to warrant the price - it was slightly better than packet 'Smash', that's all that could be said for it.
There was something on the dessert menu that I had my eye on, but after the highly variable starters and mains, I'd lost faith in them, so we paid and left, me with a nagging sense of having been 'had'. I didn't complain because I didn't want to upset my wife on this day of all days, but I really wanted to. The Hopback GFB was nothing to write home about, either; this can be an excellent pint at other establishments, most notably The Duck in Laverstock.
In short, not an amazing experience, save for my bank manager's.
We won't be going again till reports drastically and consistently improve.

18 Feb 2009 12:16

The Anchor and Hope, Salisbury

Cosy, well run and easy-going boozer, now sadly engaged in a battle with the council over noise generated from the courtyard beer garden. Chief complainer, I'm told, only relatively recently a resident. Can only presume that his/her property was bought sight unseen; Salisbury is not short of a pub or two in this area!
An infinitely better bet than the overpriced and slightly pretentious Coach & Horses just up the road, whose landlady once took issue with me when I questioned why she'd charged me more for the same round than we'd been served all night by her staff! "If you don't like it, you can leave", was her opening gambit! Never forgotten it....
No nonsense of that kind here, thankfully.

3 Dec 2008 19:14