BITE user comments - RAFsprog
Comments by RAFsprog
The beer is very good. Three different Fullers beers. The food: forget it. Very expensive and small portions. Take the cheap option of a baked potato and they won't take the trouble to cook it through. Still, the beer is that good you won't notice you're eating raw potato... Internet connection �6 an hour. Why?
15 Nov 2007 20:29
The Lamb is one of those iconic Young's pubs whose days are clearly numbered, like all the rest of these pubs under the new regime (look what they did to the Flask in Hampstead!) One of the pubs I have known and loved for decades. The Young's Special is just about recognizable - but is it my imagination or has it lost its edge?
The food is over priced. I remember we used to eat here when we were students at the Central School of Art around the corner. You would not do that now!
15 Nov 2007 20:25
Aah, memory lane... Here it was, on our first outing from RAF Halton in our new uniforms, that we went and got thoroughly slaughtered. The beer was 2/6 a pint (half a crown) and the song playing at the time was "Hey Jude". You could get a whole pint down in the time it was playing! I went in there a few weeks ago for old times' sake. Pleasant place. Nice people. Good beer. Some things don't change...
15 Nov 2007 20:16
Another pub I remember from a significant time: it was here that we went to drown our sorrows when the news of the Hillsborough tragedy came in, on a Saturday afternoon in 1989. In those days there was something worth drinking in the place: it was either a Higson's pub or at least a free house with various local real ales. Last year when I went in there it was impossible to find anything worth drinking. The atmosphere was good. But there again, what pub in Liverpool doesn't have atmosphere? Give us the decent beer back....!
15 Nov 2007 20:11
I remember the Turf Tavern from my student days and we always used to go there in the winter for mulled wine. The real treat in the simmer was the Hook Norton beer. Unfortunately, when I went there recently neither were available. What was available was the kind of surly management that made me drink up quickly and head for the pub across the road on the corner!
15 Nov 2007 20:05
I remember the Turf Tavern from my student days and we always used to go there in the winter for mulled wine. The real treat in the simmer was the Hook Norton beer. Unfortunately, when I went there recently neither were available. What was available was the kind of surly management that made me drink up quickly and head for the pub across the road on the corner!
15 Nov 2007 20:05
A spectacular view of the beach and the Thames Estuary, which is guaranteed to hold your attention while you wait for an hour and a half for your food to arrive. Sometimes the beer is good, and that arrives quicker.
15 Nov 2007 20:03
The Yew Tree in Barfrestone is one of the nicest locations in East Kent, next to a beautiful 12th century church with a bell rope that leads to a bell in a yew tree! The pub was always very successful, then mysteriously closed for along time a few years ago. The people who ran it when it reopened introduced a no-smoking policy and this was the cause of a continuing war with some of their customers, which was their undoing.
That was a shame, as they produced good food and managed to sell real ale (the East Kent micro brewery sort) at a very reasonable price. The present people are still producing good food, but the prices are much higher and the atmosphere has gone. Meanwhile, the law has come in and the arguments that were the reason for getting rid of the previous landlords now look a bit pathetic.
15 Nov 2007 19:59
The Bishops Finger, Canterbury
I used to drink in this pub regularly with a bunch of teachers. The experience of a friend of mine a university lecturer, two years ago - who was actually assaulted by staff meant that I have never been in there again. I hope they have employed better staff in recent times!
15 Nov 2007 19:52
The little garden at the back would be a nice place to sit if there was a). decent beer or b). friendly staff to serve it or c). any locals who were polite to newcomers. I have tried this pub on and off several times over a seventeen year period. Don't think I'll bother again. (It was once suggested by teachers at the nearby Canterbury High School that they make it their regular, as it was near to the school. That amounted to one quick drink and a hasty retreat to the Bishop's Finger down the road!)
15 Nov 2007 19:50
The Dolphin used to be one of those places you'd go into while they fixed your bicycle at Durovernum Cycles, across the road, and you'd just hide in the corner with a bad pint of something unspeakable while you kept out of the way of the knife fights and the drug pushers. So, what a pleasant surprise that they managed to turn it into something really good, with a regular line up of real ales and a good selection of reasonably priced food. The garden at the back is well kept and well furnished, and it really has acquired the reputation of a garden with atmosphere; a rare distinction.
15 Nov 2007 19:45
Oh dear! One of my favourite pubs of all time. I knew when they closed it that we would be sad when they re-opened it at something else. The signs said "Closed for improvements". What they did is appalling. Goodbye old friend. I'll never cross the threshold again. This was a classic Young's pub and they've finished it off good and proper! Wells Bombardier...? Do me a flavour!
15 Nov 2007 19:40
The pub has changed a great deal in the thirty years I've known it. This is a food pub now, but a food pub with excellent beer. Try the Black Sheep! There are good vegetarian options. I know this because my daughter, who I first took to this pub in a pushchair twenty five years ago, is a vegetarian and this is one of the few placesv where there is good beer for me and good veggy food for her!
15 Nov 2007 19:35
The Villagers Inn, Blackheath
This is a jolly nice little pub. The beer is well kept and the atmosphere is pleasant. On a good day the garden is filled with people, and it is a really lovely setting. There is a regular trail of people on the food pilgrimage! (Word seems to spread somehow!) You can walk your meal and your drink off in the extensive woods nearby. I've seen a few pubs around this country (and reviewed a few of them here) but the Villagers is one nice little corner of England I can certainly recommend.
15 Nov 2007 20:42