please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
to cate4u ...and your comment about a well cooked steak...i can understand about your pregnancy but why give the pub such a low score just cus of your condition? why did you even order the steak if you knew u had to have it well done??? there were plenty of other items on the menu i presume??
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I was quite surprised to see this Youngs pub in rural Gloucestershire. It's a far nicer affair than most of Youngs outlets in London. This pub seems to revolve around food. In addition to full meals, small bar snacks such as plates of pork scratchings are offered. One room was showing the live 6 Nations rugby match. So I presume there is also a small local crowd that uses the pub. Ales on were Bath Gem, Youngs Ordinary & Youngs Special. Cider was Addlestones or Thatchers Heritage. Although apparently they produce their own cider from their orchard at certain times of the year.
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Dropped by on way home from bike holiday in Wales. Beautiful old roomy peaceful place, no music or blaring TV screens (hallelujah), occasional farmyard sounds (and smells!) wafting through, views over the hedge opposite down to the estuary, plenty of tables both in and out; bit rustic but slightly posh with it. I enjoyed the Thatcham heritage cider on tap (so many places only offer the uninspiring sparkly stuff). Food fairly pricey (�10+ mostly), but the portions were generous and I noticed there were some cheaper trad pub meals on the menu. Shame we were just passing through; would happily drop in more often just to soak up the tranquility.
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A nice old pub in a lovely setting (check out the sunset from the garden).
I've given it a 6/10 rating because, despite efforts made to cook good food (as evidenced by half of our group being satisfied with their orders), I paid �17.95 for a tasty, 'well done' steak which has been ruined by being cooked into leather. I know the standard advice to diners on this island is to order a steak 'medium' to avoid this problem, but alas pregnant women are strongly counselled against eating meat which isn't thoroughly cooked, ruling out the 'slightly bloody' option. This would be a pub to return to repeatedly (don't I love the Gloucestershire ones despite living in London!) if the food was generally very good and the prices say 20% lower.
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Beer condition great here, beauty of a pint of Young's London Gold on my visit .....well OK several pints! At long last it's nice to see them finally taking care of the beer drinker as well as the diners. Good for them!
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Was staying in a local B&B two nights ago and this pub was recommended to me as a place for an evening meal. I was hungry having cycled down from mid-Wales that day.
The food I ate was fine, nothing hugely special, but well cooked, well presented pub chain fare. As it happens fish cakes are a favourite of mine ;) There was a steady footfall through the place of diners and drinkers. Service was fine, the two young ladies behind the bar chatting to each other, about the relative merits of the various districts of Brizzle as place to live, but maintaining vigilance and breaking off as soon as anyone approached the bar.
I had two pints of Youngs, a special, and the straight bitter. Superb, enough to want me to kidnap the cellarman and take him home with me. The locals were downing the stuff enthusiastically too.
Place has a tidy wine list too, but after eating I was in the mood for a coffee and a brandy. They serve a decent espresso dopio to go with your courvoisier.
Not the cheapest pub I've ever been in but certainly one of the cleanest and friendliest I've been in in a long time. Wish it were one of my locals.
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Been very good of late I must say with ever changing guest ale + the usual Youngs range. The Caledonian Duchers I had on my visit was sublime. Bar was full of drinkers too on a Friday night which was nice to see as (as is more common in this recession) the dinners were nowhere to be seen.
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OK so most people seem to feel that the food is for want of a better word .. rubbish. I go to pubs to drink myself and rarely eat at any of my locals but I must say that the food that comes out of the kitchen does not look that great to my eyes and the prices charged for such small portions of "outdated" (It's all mid 1980's menu fodder and nothing to shout about) cuisine are daylight robbery. However, let's try and say something nice about the pub .......
Back in the good old day's, when people mainly went to pubs to *drink*, this place was a corker and packed to the rafters because of that. Sure they still did food back then but the highlight was the Smiles Ales on tap .... oooh for a pint of good old Exhibition these days or a Bristol Stout. Ever since Smiles sold off their pubs/went bust and Youngs took over this place has been on the slide and beer quality very iffy indeed and the management concentrated so much on food forgot about the drinkers and frankly showed little respect to them and the many locals that frequented - drinkers sought pastures new and White Hart becomes overpriced, poncy country restaurant.
However in the last year the place has been tarted up a bit, seen new management and the beer quality has been very high overall throughout so BRAVO for that! So it's clearly not drink where this place is failing. No, as said by so many other reviewers it's the overpriced, outdated, iffy food that has taken this pub right off the map and these day's in Britain's hard times our country pubs out in the sticks rely so much on food income they cannot afford to slip up on such an important part of their business. If you look in the kitchen on a Friday night you will see it is chock ablock with staff and servers yet the pub itself barely a third full with a car park that you used to have a job getting into is these day's almost empty.
So they have the drink side right now but no drinkers, I bet they wished they had handled things with a bit more respect towards the locals/regulars a few years back now but it may just be too late. I still enjoy a pint here now & again but such a shame the bar is so empty.
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I went to this pub on a Thursday evening with three friends. I thought that this would be a good evening but the menu was limited and not all the choices were available. The food could only be described at best as mediocre, two of the meals being served on cold plates. Typical pub-chain food. If you want quality go to an independent pub.
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Visited in mid June 2008. Found the menu had changed. Less choice & more expensive. Ordered three ploughmans at �7.95 each and was appalled at the value for money aspect. Have had 'more for less' elsewhere. A thimble of mayonnaise was given for all three of us to share - wow! We asked for more and some butter to go with the bread. Young waitress was huffy and rude in responding to our request. I complained when asked "Is everything alright with your meals" but nothing happened. I asked at the bar for the manager, but the barman took my complaint, and admitted "Well I know we are expensive..." but nothing happened. I put my 'feedback' through the brewery website on 13 June but nothing happened, so I guess we know where they stand on customer care. If you do go, don't have a ploughmans - order the cheese sandwich as you'll get twice the bread and cheese that we got for less money!! We used to eat here very well for reasonable cost but not any more.
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This Pub used to be well known for it's good food, but since it changed hands in 07, it's really gone down hill. Years ago there was a brilliant Varied menu, with fruity main salads, fab pies & allsorts of unusual tasty things, with church candles & fresh flowers always on the tables, then it changed hands, the food became expensive & poncey, & the church candles replaced with T-lights. But now with the most recent owners, there's No flowers or candles, and the things we fancied on the standard unchanging menu were sold out. Neither the sausage or liver meals that we had came with Any veg and left us (normal appetites) starving and pretty empty in the wallet department too! This once offered an outstanding & good value menu, now it's just bland & overpriced.
The beer is still good.
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Vastly improved as of late. New manager, pub has been cleaned at long last and redecoration also. I had to send a beer back but the manager dealt with me and my complaint sorted out poilitely in a jiffy with no problems whatsoever. Exactly how it should be.
Still a Youngs (Read Charlie Wells!) pub and mainly food oriented of course but that aside well worth a visit still even for the drinker.
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Beautiful Pub in lovely surroundings but not the same since Howard left.... The beers aren't kept as well & the menu has changed considerably & unfortunately not a patch on the old menu, please bring back the good old 'Oggie', I really don't understand why the current Managers ever took it off the menu in the first place !
anonymous - 17 Sep 2007 09:17 |
Nice oldie worldy pub in nice surroundings but a victim of its own success. Too many customers who come because they have always done so or they heard an old story about how good it was. All present tense. Young staff who are just churning thru the customers. Average food and beer. 45 minute wait for 2 meals - we were hungry when we were at home - hense the spontaneous 'Let's go Out'. We were past caring after the wait. Average food - my wife left half of it. My sausages and mash was OK - but they miss a point here. In the Smiles days they would have had 3 different bangers all locally sourced and made a fuss of it.
Needs cleaning and decoration and above all to stop resting on its laurels. Get some older staff - someone with life and soul - we come to a pub not a fast (?) food joint.
Was very disappointed - yet again !!!
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Best pub in the Bristol area in the 1980s. Sadly has not come close to such quality for a long time. Beer was ok when I visited recently. Would echo comments about griminess.
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Was once a great pub back in the old Smiles days but now sadly a shadow of it's former glory since Youngs took it over a number of years ago and just yet another country restaraunt masqerading as a pub.
Usual, dull Youngs beers on tap and the odd guest beer. Don't think the place has been cleaned properly for years either, ingrained dirt & cobwebs almost everywhere you look.
Crying out for someone like Bath Ales or similar to takeover, one can only hope as this was once a glorious place.
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Ok, nice pub food very simple ale kept well
anonymous - 19 Apr 2006 14:34 |
What a find! We went to the pub for a meal with friends and family. A quintesential English pub with dark wood and lots or rooms hidden away, stone and brick floors, fireplaces, garden and a large carpark. The food was simple, varied, well cooked and inexpensive, and the house white - a Chilean Chardonnay - was good value. Not surprisingly, it was very busy, even on a Thursday. Perhaps a real ale other than Youngs would have been a plus.
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