BITE user comments - gingerweasel
Comments by gingerweasel
The Jerusalem Tavern, Clerkenwell
Nice place, friendly guy at the bar who was suspiciously well-informed about the Singing Thai Elvis restaurant. Smell of cooking food when we stumbled in was distinctly pleasing.
Not sure there's any room for more staff.
Great place for a random pre lunch random lager thing. Otherwise a bit tiny in the evening.
15 Dec 2005 11:55
Attractively done out place w/ a pleasant atmosphere. Bit of a bugger to find. One of the few pubs in central London that could plausibly have seating outside (but doesn't).
Don't know what's so bad about being 'rammed with barristers and office workers'. Lovely sets of people, both of them and as deserving of a drink as the next man.
28 Oct 2005 14:08
Yup, Orangiboom. That's all it has going for it.
Mildly crappy old school atmosphere. S'oright, I suppose - good place to stop off on the way back to the office when it's raining.
26 Oct 2005 17:57
Never quite managed to go here without spending the entire afternoon.
The food is exactly what I expected of a pub about ten years ago. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. It is a real pub, though - bizarrely inefficient central bar area, awkward tables &c. Sounds bad but is in fact good.
Good ales on tap and I can't normally be arsed with ale, so there you go.
26 Oct 2005 17:50
There's that weird-ass frog-looking sculpture at the kitchen end of the bar, too. WTF is that about?
26 Oct 2005 17:44
The Coach and Horses, Clerkenwell
Like it - especially the food. What it ain't, for a proper meal, is cheap. Had a damn good goose roast dinner there last Christmas.
Fewer Grauniad types and I'd be there more often.
26 Oct 2005 17:34
Good stuff. Especially for a long Sunday afternoon with an extra big newspaper - lunch, drinks, then coffee. Because of the very decent food it gets very busy during the week and at the weekend. The chairs are so rickety that I fear serious personal injury every time I sit down on them.
26 Oct 2005 17:28
The Pakenham Arms, Clerkenwell
Looks v. nice from the outside; traditional grotty boozer on the inside. Glad they still exist but prefer to avoid them.
Beer was alright, inside needs a scrub down, though.
26 Oct 2005 17:22
Decentish bar - nice atmos. Football tables a big plus but they're a little on the slow side.
26 Oct 2005 17:18
The slowest serivce of any pub anywhere in the world. Only ever seems to have one or two members of staff serving and another two buggering about shifting nothing. The staff have a noticable talent for serving the poor buggers who have been at the bar longest after the johnnie-come-latelys.
Beer's poop, atmosphere is 'airport waiting lounge', smells of stale beer and cigarettes. Nothing whatsoever to recommend it.
26 Oct 2005 17:15
The Bleeding Heart, Clerkenwell
Excellent food, wine, beer. Very French. Not really a pub more an informal looking restaurant.
Stopped by last night with the missus because we were too lazy to cook. Still very good, though her Diet Coke was flat. They replaced it without a murmur, however. The suckling pig was A*.
26 Oct 2005 12:18
Slightly scary 'local' pub. Best avoided in the evenings unless you want to spend the whole time feeling distinctly out of place in your salaryman whistle & flute.
26 Oct 2005 12:14
Bland, too busy, too big, too wetherspoonsy. Just a big room with expensive beer and slow service because of the millions of wetherspon's-type customers.
Poop.
26 Oct 2005 12:11
Didn't like it before the refurbishment. Not over-keen on it now, even though it's very different.
The food's not bad. The beer's alright. The space taken up by the bar is about the same as that required for a Routemaster bus. It's a bit cluttered generally as well. Makes navigating the pub a little difficult. In particular 'cos it's so dark.
26 Oct 2005 12:03
Mince Ikea-looking 'pub'. Unique selling point being that the entire frontage opens up onto the No. 45 Arriva bus to King's X.
Handy if you a)get home via King's X and you can't be arsed to walk far from the pub to the bus and b)love blond wood flooring. Not handy if you a)generally prefer to drink beer diesel-free b)have moved on from the 'all floors must be pine-laminate' school of interior decoration.
Used to be the Old Monk, which was also pants.
26 Oct 2005 11:41
Really good food, tiny pub. Especially when you consider that only the front 1/4 is really anything like a pub.
Nice traditional look, though.
26 Oct 2005 11:31
Used to be good in an old kind of way and cheap. Now good in a trendy kind of way and not cheap.
Plus: Food is pretty good. Atmosphere likewise. Beer & wines also decent.
Minus: Stupidly oversized glass table in the middle of the room that takes up lots of space and is awkward to sit around. Laughable art prints on the wall. Ham, eggs and chips now inexplicably off the (currently illegible) menu.
26 Oct 2005 11:26
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Bootsy Brogans, Wembley
Also visited this pub pre curry last night. I can't comment on the quality of the beer because I had some generic lager or other. Which was cold, wet and generic so I suppose it met expectations. Not the sort of pub I'd normally go into because a) the name's stupid-sounding and b) it has the faintly menacing air that every pub near a station seems to have. This latter aspect may just be an invention of my weakling office worker mind, however.
10 Feb 2006 10:51