BITE user comments - cardamom
Comments by cardamom
It's a brightly light room which serves beer and will leave you stinking of chip fat for weeks.
15 Nov 2008 21:14
Pub very nice, beer choice very good. Food - completely absymal; always. It's straight off the back of the frozen lorry, and exactly the same menu as any other Mitchell and Butler pub (see the Albany at Gt Portland St among many) where the food is equally dire. Still, it's about the only place on Drummond Street you'll find meat* being served, and at least the burgers aren't green like at the Rocket.
(*factory floor scrapings...)
23 Sep 2008 23:18
Call me old fashioned, but I don't like my pubs to vibrate. 10 minutes sitting at many of the tables in here and your feet and backside go numb from whatever is whirring away in the cellar. Weird. It sounds silly, but then again, it's only the reason I don't go there anymore.
14 May 2008 11:20
The Carpenters Arms, Tottenham Court Road
The pub's been fairly recently cleaned up and is a decent looking place these days. There's a good selection of different ales and lagers; the staff have always seemed pretty good as well. But it's the people that go there that ruin it. It just seems like a magnet for the obnoxious and the inconsiderate. Why?
29 Feb 2008 17:33
Is this place meant to be a retro early 90s bar? If so, it does a cracking job of pretending to be in a timewarp. With the queues of everyone clamouring for happy hour cocktails you'll be lucky to get a drink within this decade anyway.
29 Feb 2008 17:24
The Square and Compass, Worth Matravers
The best pub in England? Obviously feelings about it are uninfluenced by the fact that almost everyone who visits is nice and relaxed, on holiday and is in there after just completing a very nice walk.
21 Jan 2008 11:14
Utterly terrible student dive populated by those that don't know better. It reeks, and the food's not so much to die for - more just to die from. Avoid.
28 Nov 2007 17:38
The Bar at tcr, Tottenham Court Road
Will admit that it has improved a great deal around the edges since the re-launch period. They even dish out free food on Thursday and Friday evenings, and the staff are a friendly bunch. One bizarre thing though - if you walk in there at 5pm on a Friday the place may well be empty, but you can have a hard time finding a spot to sit down as EVERY table is reserved. What's that about?? It's a winner with office parties, all they offer...
If you're tired of the small traditional Goodge St boozers and you can't face being robbed in the Mortimer then this is one of your nearest alternatives.
10 Sep 2007 17:10
6 St Chad's Place, Kings Cross
The best thing about this venue was it was an oasis in Kings Cross for a decent drink and some food after work. Note the past tense. Now it's blown out of the water by Camino round the corner in particular, along with all the other new places that have come along with the big KX clean-up. A pioneer certainly, but will it last beyond novelty status? It's always very quiet these days, in the week at least, so you're guaranteed a seat; it's been lacking any atmosphere since they painted over their back wall...
10 Sep 2007 16:56
Spaniards Inn, Hampstead Heath
This should be one of the best pubs in London - instead, it is possibly one of the worst. In terms of appearances, it's exactly the same as the Highgate Flask, but three times bigger.
The customer service is truly diabolical. Have been a few times, all terrible, but I so want to like the place I keep punishing myself. Last Sunday was typical - 25 minute wait (absolutely no exaggeration) on a surprisingly quiet afternoon. You could only laugh at the absurdity of it all after a while. Ignored my turn at the bar by the barman gesticulating "Please people, can you keep this way a bit more" (cue non distinct hand wave). You can try the outside bar but you have to join an orderly single file queue manned by a solitary non-English speaking person who hasn't been trained on the till either - not their fault really; it's pathetic management. Be ready to point at the beer pumps for your order. It wasn't clear whether the staff were just idiots, badly trained, or they deliberately didn't give a toss as they were sick of the attitude that most of the Hampstead toffy regulars probably dish out to them.
The garden's barbeque had run out of burgers, at 1230 on a Sunday, despite the fact it had been raining solid for the previous 3 weeks... sounds a little trivial, but it speaks volumes.
Heartbreaking. The garden is superb. Problem is you'll be applying for your pension by the time you get to sit in it.
The manager needs a slapping. I did wonder if they might read these comments, but on recent evidence I doubt they're literate. Or breathing. DNS.
18 Jul 2007 20:48
Not exactly the most diverse pub in the world - everyone seemed cloned from the same shop display at Gap and I came out with an Australian accent. Food's ok if you get hungry whilst in there but wouldn't go there specifically for that. The garden's the big draw. Harmless, safe, bland. Very side-street Putney.
12 Jul 2007 11:20
The Bar at tcr, Tottenham Court Road
The last 5/6 reviews all seem a little suspicious. New bar opens, lots of one-post-wonders suddenly appear. All written in the same tone... Hmmm. All failing to mention the major fact it's the only early-adopter for the non-smoking policy in the area which makes the pub a guaranteed place to get a seat at almost any time of day until July 1st.
This place is better than the Pint Pot, but there was only one way to go from there. The music can be dreadful, but to their credit the staff are happy to change it. Has lots of TVs which is fairly unusual for most pubs round Fitzrovia. The paper menus look like a school IT project though, and the beer choice is really limited to the usual yellow fizzy lagery crap suspects. It's not really anywhere to go out of your way for, and calling it a "West End Bar" is seriously overstating it.
18 Jun 2007 15:45
Great on a cold weekday in Winter and highly recommended. Pretty hellish on a hot day in Summer: designer ripped t-shirt and oversize sunnies obligatory, otherwise people might stare and have you moved along.
13 Jun 2007 16:28
Eaten on both a Saturday afternoon and a Friday night and never had to deal with booking issues and the like; just turned up and had a 10 minute wait in the bar with a beer. All very nice. Staff friendly as is normally the way when you are in the first place. Menu is always different, fresh, interesting, simple and good value. The restaurant can seem like a full-on dining room experience but it has lots of character - I agree that a big weakness of this place is everyone always seems to chain smoke the moment they arrive, but that's soon to change anyway.
13 Jun 2007 16:25
I practically lived in here for the first year of the BRB, but still concede that it had to go in the end. Instead Camberwell is now blessed with another place decorated according to the instructions in the pub-by-numbers catalogue.
This place is seriously expensive for drinks. It looks pleasant enough admittedly, but suffers a lack of people. And it lacks people because it is expensive in Camberwell. So many incarnations of posh pubs have come and gone in this small area - Camberwell seriously tried to gentrify about 7 years ago, and it whimpered and died pretty quick, but still they try and this is just the latest effort. If it wasn't backed up by Young's I'd only give it 18 months, because it's so expensive. I said it again.
13 Jun 2007 16:10
The Norfolk Arms, Russell Square
This is a restaurant first, then a pub. Bar staff pestered us so much to try and order food whilst we had drinks that it put us off eating and decided to go somewhere else. It wasn't a tough call as the two ales were really dreary, one generic lager was seemingly brewed by Sarson's and the other looked as though it had passed through a soda stream. Really disappointing as I was looking forward this place. Maybe it was a bad day.
18 May 2007 12:11
It's like sitting in a theme pub at Alton Towers, in appearance and atmosphere. I keep expecting a ghost train car to come smashing through the door at any moment, complete with screaming witch and siren. And when the pinball machine is twanging away it just feels anything other than a pub.
Amazed there's no toffee apples on the menu.
17 May 2007 13:23
Still no pumps working. A pub with no beer - is this place way ahead of its time in setting a new trend or something? It seems like a determined effort anyway.
6 Feb 2007 12:18
The Bridge Lounge and Dining Room, Tower Bridge
No longer an Elusive Camel, but now called the Bridge Lounge. All TV screens have gone and it's much improved overall.
23 Jul 2006 14:38
It just feels like a place that used to be good, but is well past its best. To compensate for this the management have decided to simply take the piss out of the customers by charging them to get in after 8 and then turn off the beer taps in the early evening and make them drink overpriced bottles. All a bit cynical really and a bit of a shame.
14 Jul 2006 23:49
I have to update my earlier comment, as I have loved going in here every week for the past year or so, but now have to admit that it is rapidly going down the tubes. Where the staff were always the same and friendly you now have a huge turnover and rarely see the same face twice; great food has now become dry, overcooked, tasteless and blatantly reheated; fast service is now a 45 minute for a burger; banter at the bar was replaced on my last visit by two separate people lining up to complain; the good music has disappeared and the clientele has slowly moved from a fairly young good mix to becoming another hive of suited office drones creating a lame atmosphere. You may as well go to the Globe, and that�s saying something. It�s time to head into Marylebone. What a shame.
Glad you liked it now geordiedave, but we are total opposites on this one.
15 Jun 2006 11:49
The Old Queens Head, Islington
Is a little bit of Hoxton, in Islington, such a great thing? If you want Hoxton then just go to Hoxton.
I wasn�t all that sure if this was a gay pub. It was full of well-dressed-max-effort and groomed blokes (tight adidas tops, expensive haircut, dainty hand hang of a cigarette), and like below mentioned, a small sprinkling good looking women. Beer selection contained all the imagination of an interview with a footballer though.
1 Jun 2006 21:22
A good place, especially for the sports, and the BBC have been known to film their pub crowd scenes in there for just that. Manager and staff always seem friendly even when stupidly busy and the mix of people in there is huge. A good all-rounder with the bonus that you can take your own grub in for lunch.
14 May 2006 20:51
Late licence place usually. Risk of death or disease is significantly less than the alternative, Belushi's
14 May 2006 20:45
If you start queuing at the bar now then you might get served by the time hell freezes over. Those looking like old regulars were definitely more likely to be served first, although saying that they were probably sprightly teenagers when they started to order their round.
Garden is unbeatable for the summer; inside looked good enough but the service really is that bad as to be off-putting.
14 May 2006 20:33
Litten Tree = Wetherspoons + TV - OAPs
If you dribble at the thought of cheap beer and dislike television then grab your walking stick and head the 4 yards next door
5 May 2006 00:42
The Square and Compass, Worth Matravers
The fact that the person in the queue in front of me asked if the bar accepted US Dollars might hint that the secret is out. She was gutted that they only took Yen...
The garden is wonderful, with Purbeck stone for tables and seats. Just as well, as inside is tiny and about the size of the many Chelsea Tractor 4x4s parked outside.
5 May 2006 00:33
Tiger Tiger, Piccadilly Circus
Essex town centre, comes to Haymarket. Seeing as most in there are from out that way they could have saved themselves the trainfare.
5 May 2006 00:27
The Bridge Lounge and Dining Room, Tower Bridge
Deeply disappointing - always. Go in here every few months, hoping it will have improved on the last attempt. It never does. Service is beyond awful, it's stupidly expensive, and, well, it's an Elusive Camel and everything you come to expect from such a dire chain. It could be great; it isn't. Avoid.
Go to the King's Arms 200yds further on.
5 May 2006 00:10
The first pub in the world to aspire to the Wetherspoons stereotype. It has it all. Carlsberg is 1.69, so drink enough and you don't notice.
4 Dec 2005 17:02
Proper old pub with very modern prices - presumably an anti-student premium. Undoubtedly worth a stop, even if it's just to twiddle the wonderful glass windows at the bar, but not worth remortaging or selling grandparents for.
4 Dec 2005 16:59
The Porterhouse, Covent Garden
For extraordinarily rich and stupid drinkers. The two are often associated in these parts...
4 Dec 2005 16:48
Awful. Can words do it justice? Abominable, alarming, appalling, atrocious, bad, deplorable, depressing, dire, disgusting, distressing, dreadful, fearful, frightful, ghastly, grody, gross, gruesome, grungy, harrowing, hideous, horrendous, horrible, horrific, horrifying, nasty, offensive, repulsive, shocking, stinking, synthetic, tough, ugly, unpleasant, unsightly. And that's just the building. Every morning when I have to walk past the place that makes the South Bank look like the Taj Mahal, my radio cuts out in its shadow - even radiowaves avoid the place. Tourists, however, love it. Say no more.
4 Dec 2005 16:41
How did they manage to make a pub so ordinary? It has absolutely zero character and is instantly forgettable. Remarkable. That said, it is a good meeting place because it's easy to find, fight probability is significantly lower than the Nags Head and people won't want to get stuck in there all night cos it's so tedious.
4 Dec 2005 15:11
Be careful when going in in here. There's a nasty step in the doorway and you wouldn't want your knuckles to drag on it.
4 Dec 2005 15:06
This pub doesn't have a fruity - it IS a fruity. You can get lucky and it'll be a real winner, or it'll just suck the money from your wallet and be beyond awful. You just can't work out the formula for which it'll be at any given time. Sociable atmosphere, drinks/vinegar quality and lungcancertastic rating are all highly unpredictable.
4 Dec 2005 15:02
The Princess of Wales, Blackheath
This place seemed like 3 different pubs in one. By the front door it is fairly old-school and football colours friendly, and as you move towards the back it gets progressively posh until you hit the well-heeled buggy-brigade, especially on a Sunday afternoon.
A pub that caters for everyone - what an amazing concept these days...
4 Dec 2005 14:53
It's well off the usual track and worth a stop or going out of your way for, especially in summer, although the fixed picnic table set-up is a little impractical if there are more/less than 4 of you! The food is indeed a little overpriced, especially being a Sam Smith's, but booze makes up for that. It's an extremely popular place for antipodeans over the weekend for some reason.
29 Nov 2005 18:20
The Pitcher and Piano, Bishopsgate
A vacuous and characterless place for vacuous and characterless people.
Avoid - unless you fit the above description, which many unfortunately seem to do. Still, at least they all congregate in one place and out of the way.
29 Nov 2005 18:12
The Bridge House, Tower Bridge
Wealthy, 45+, sensibly dressed, social class I's very welcome. The feeling is that anyone else is hoi polloi who can go to the River Bar. If you don't feel out of place when you walk I am sure the uninterested staff will make you feel it, so don't worry. Stuck up; socially engineered pub at its worst.
29 Nov 2005 18:07
6 St Chad's Place, Kings Cross
You have to be determined to find this place, tucked away down an alleyway/sewer, but it creates a small sense of exclusivity! It is remarkably good for the KX area, the food looks well priced and on a weekday evening you can always get a seat. Seems to play a lot of late 90s tunes as well at the moment, but every week the draught beer is flat or poured very badly - shame. Stick to bottles or the large wine list.
26 Oct 2005 17:27
The Old Thameside Inn, London Bridge
I believe that the person hanging from the wall in Clink Street was a former customer who only went in for 2 pints of lager, and ended up looking like that by the time he was served.
26 Oct 2005 17:20
Far better than it has any right to be given its fairly uninspiring location. It feels more like a suburban pub rather than a central London commuter pub by a tube, and is better for it.
It does get busy, but it remains surprisingly tourist free in a big tourist area.
21 Sep 2005 15:50
A good choice of Czech beers usually makes for decent pub. However, this place got it slightly wrong and you need a good knowledge of the Czech language in order to get a beer.
It has TV which is slightly odd for a Wetherspoons, but they are reluctant to put the sound on upstairs, even on big sports events. This ruins the atmosphere, but if you want that why are you in a Wetherspoons?
21 Sep 2005 15:42
It's a decent atmosphere in here, or any pub, when they don't play mis-placed horrendous Ibiza 90s euro-house shite loudly at 6pm on a wet Wednesday. However, this place recently specialised in wet Wednesdays and loud 90s euro-house shite.
21 Sep 2005 15:36
This has been cloned from the lifeforms spawned in the slops bucket at the Old Thameside Inn and the Founder's Arms, both in the area.
All are tourist holes, more atmosphere on the moon, greater chance of finding someone that speaks English to pour you a pint on the moon as well and the places all ooze the attitude that customers are one-trip-wonders and deserve bugger all service. Why any self respecting Londoner would go in any of these is a mystery.
11 Sep 2005 15:27
ok heinekenmatt, here you go. I fail to understand what an internet username has to do with my comment's credibility though. And I stick by my middle of the road comment, having been in there yesterday as well. Not great, not bad.
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The past 3 comments sound very suspiciously like acts of self-promotion.
This place is ok, but not worth going well out of your way for. Better than Liam OGs for sure.
19 May 2005 14:55
The Rocket, Euston
From the looks of all these "I haven't been in six months but it's much better now" type comments, it would appear to be under new management.
16 Jan 2009 18:26