BITE user comments - Major_Bill
Comments by Major_Bill
Excellent little pub. Just the right mixture of efficiency and historic charm. Good beer, nice staff. Tends to be busy at 7pm , quieter by about 8.15 as the "post work pint" crowd heads home. Well worth a visit.
23 Nov 2010 09:28
Decent London pub. Good beer, good food (aiming for the "big plateful" effect rather than delicacy but hey, I'm not that dainty myself!), nice staff. Bit cramped inside, especially if you end up on the side of the bar where the door to the gents is. Not special but a decent enough option.
22 Nov 2010 14:50
I've been here quite a bit; latest visit was in October 2010 for a midweek lunch.
The Poacher isn't really a pub at all, it's a restaurant which serves drinks. The interior is smart and glitzy, and though there is a bar you can sit at, most of the space is given over to tables for eating.
I had a decent bowl of game stew with dumplings and a couple of perfectly OK pints. The staff were friendly and efficient. It's all fine but it's not a place where I would ever go with a mate for a few beers. It's somewhere to take your mum for Sunday lunch, or to take a girl who doesn't really like pubs. It's all very clean and smart and characterless.
22 Nov 2010 14:45
Intrigued by LDW's reports (we obviously drink on the same circuit, LDW!) I popped in here the other day for a midweek pint and sandwich. Many good things: nice building; made the best of a decent little garden; dog friendly; pool table; well kept beer; EXCELLENT (and I mean excellent) home made soup; reasonable (ish - rather plastic ham) sarnies; lots of footpaths. So well worth a visit and I will definitely go back. Some not quite so inspiring things: Greene King only (so only Abbot and IPA on pump, fine for me me because I like IPA but Suffolk ales in Kent ... pffft); and some of the most clueless bar staff I have encountered this side of the Special Bus! But overall I liked it and it was a solid 7. Whether the staff could cope with a crowd on a Sunday lunch is another matter ...
9 Apr 2010 17:53
Really good pub. Top of the range for beer, it just doesn't get any better than this. Food was well above average and they had some good fresh options as well as the pub staples (which were done well). Nice people, friendly atmosphere. Minor downsides - no dogs in or out, and the garden's not exactly full of charm. But a genuinely excellent pub, thank goodness for places like this. (Feb 2010)
20 Feb 2010 20:01
The Chequers, Lamberhurst
Really hard to know what to say about this pub. On the one hand, it keeps good Shepherd Neame beer, has a nice fire, a decent garden, and serves excellent food. But on the other hand, the food is so slow as to be beyond acceptable, even for such good food, and this spoils the whole experience. Our last two weekend lunches (both in 2011) - ordered late (2:15) and didn't get our food till nearly 3:30; ordered in good time (12:55) and didn't get main courses till 2:35. Now the food is serious cooking, and when it eventually arrives it is really good, so you can see it takes time to prepare. But that amount of time is just silly. They really need to do something (need more hands in the kitchen? a shorter and less ambitious menu?) because waiting for 60-90 minutes for your food is a pain and my wife now refuses to go there.
18 Apr 2011 11:01