BITE user comments - salminkarkku
Comments by salminkarkku
The Jerusalem Tavern, Clerkenwell
This place is for drinking superb real ale and talking bollocks. If you want something more than that, go elsewhere and leave us with more elbow room! Tip -go with someone (anyone) rather than on your own. Two reasons for this: You can guard each other's seat (if you manage to find two) when getting the beer in, and you can talk to each other instead of trying to talk to the bar staff. They have heard it all already.
20 Aug 2009 11:05
The function room upstairs is becoming a rarity, especially since the terms are reasonable. Worth remembering for that item alone.
20 Aug 2009 10:57
Amazing main bar, rather like a medieval feasting-hall but with private alcoves. Sam Smiths deserves maximum respect for keeping all branded beer-wine-spirit products out of their pubs. Their own stuff is usually better, anyway -try their answer to Guinness, or their draught wheat beer, or their whisky which is very good.
Enjoyed sitting in an alcove, discussing private stuff with my brother and watching the Kiwi barmaid chewing her nails and picking her nose. She forgot that we were there!
20 Aug 2009 10:50
A small real ale pub that does rock gigs is a rarity nowadays. Well worth a visit, but it is some walk from Crawley town centre.
20 Aug 2009 10:35
I used to know this pub when it was a Beard's free house, serving a superb range of real ales. Apart from forest, the only thing to note nearby is Worth Abbey, a monastery and public school, and the pub has always been the watering-hole for the teachers and sixth-form.
It's now just "The Cowdray", and is a gastro-pub. (Yet another stupid, pointless name-change). The food is excellent, and sourced locally. The beer is bog-standard Greene King -yawn.
Good for a meal, don't bother otherwise.
20 Aug 2009 10:31
Stopped by for a pint; the Taylor's Landlord was OK. The big German Shepherd philosophical rather than friendly. Interesting info on the walls on the Piltdown Man hoax, but the decor very slapdash. Obviously aims for family custom.
20 Aug 2009 10:24
The Three Cups Inn, Heathfield
This pub was showing some disquieting problems when two of us broke our journey for lunch in mid-August.
The real ales were Harvey's and two guests, and we went for the latter. The Weldon's had not been pulled through (at 1:30 pm), so the first pint was rejected. OK after pulling through. The Skinner's was flat and absolutely undrinkable, not vinegary but septic and tasting like a Belgian lambic. The bar service was friendly and accommodating (it had to be), but the Skinner's was left on sale.
My partner was very pleased with his steak and chips. My sausage and mash had good-quality sausages made leathery by being too long in the hotplate, with an excellent balsamic onion gravy.
The washbasin in the mens' toilets was absolutely filthy, with hairs and an empty soap dispenser. This is quite unacceptable in a pub serving meals.
Hence I'm giving this pub a low mark, and hope that other visitors find it improved.
20 Aug 2009 10:07
Beware- it's nowhere near Balcombe, but on a crossroads in between that place and the M23.
30 Jul 2009 11:58
I recommend you go in here on your own with a hard-back book in mid-afternoon, order two pints of different real ales at a time to cut your waiting in half, sit in a corner with your other pint keeping the next place so that no other mad scrote sits next to you and try not to fall down the staircase on the way back from the bogs.
That's what I do, anyway. Bliss!
Oh, and remember to stagger out before the chavs start pouring in of an evening.
This is Crawley, after all.
30 Jul 2009 11:55
James Bond drank here. Good choice.
The nearest pub to the Royal Harbour Hotel, AKA Fawlty Towers as featured on YouTube.
30 Jul 2009 11:47
If you enjoy slumming it in Eastern Europe, perhaps in Romania where you can feel superior while visiting old towns which are falling to bits after years of neglect, then you may enjoy the Ramsgate pubs in Kings Street. Beware -can be risky.
30 Jul 2009 11:43
Once upon a time, in Saxon days, there was an overgrazed wood. After the trees died and none replaced them, it became a common (about the year 1200). Then it was divided up and became a hamlet of cottages with a pub. Then it was overrun by a vile tide of jerry-built bungalows. The pub survives. Worth a visit -a bit of real history hidden away.
30 Jul 2009 11:39
Addington street used to have five pubs, but one got bombed out in the war. Another one has just reopened, the "Falstaff", after the previous tenants went bust after trying very hard and getting sob-stories in the local paper about losing their life savings.
This used to be a street of small, old-fashioned shops desperately trying to be "up-market", but the leases all fell in and now the street is absolutely dead. Perhaps the only reason this pub is still open is because it wouldn't be worth much as anything else. Worth a visit for charity's sake -small basic local boozers are an endangered breed even in run-down towns like Ramsgate
30 Jul 2009 11:34
When the direct Margate to Ramsgate turnpike road was built in the eighteenth century, this was put about halfway. Back then you could see for miles, whereas now it is surrounded by crap. Leave it to the locals.
30 Jul 2009 11:28
Nearest pub to the train station, but down a very steep hill to get there (and, more seriously, up it again to get your train). If you have some time to kill, catch the "Loop" bus in the Margate direction from the station, get off at the "Viaduct" and walk under ditto.
30 Jul 2009 11:23
I think the last time this pub stocked real ale was when there was still a brewery in the town, before 1968. Surrounded by boarded-up shops and on the way to the "Jobcentre Plus Cynical Laugh". Typical Ramsgate town centre pub, but at least it's still open.
30 Jul 2009 11:20
This is the estate pub in a large council housing estate which is one of the worst for social deprivation in England. Don't blame Margaret Thatcher -there are four generations of unemployment in some families here. Don't, don't, don't even think of visiting, unless you have a clapped-out vehicle which has just failed its MOT. Park it here with the keys in & doors unlocked, and catch the bus out in a hurry.
30 Jul 2009 11:16
Best bet for real ale in Broadstairs. Unlike Margate and Ramsgate, the place has some pretensions of being a traditional "bucket & spade" seaside resort and is worth a day-trip if you are into that sort of thing. Beware -in winter they may not open at lunchtime.
30 Jul 2009 11:06
Margate is a horror, like one of those ex-mining towns up north which has lost its reason for existence. The London boroughs house a lot of their "mentally vulnerable" single DSS dependants here, and such holidaymakers and day-trippers as are left are mostly poor white Cockneys who can afford to come down here on their child and invalidity benefits. If you are unfortunate enough to be visiting and have some expectations as regards beer in what passes for the town centre, this is possibly your best bet. Despite being on the beach, they won't serve you if you are "not properly dressed" (footwear and top needed).
30 Jul 2009 11:02
Half Moon and Seven Stars, Canterbury
A very rural village pub, nowhere near Canterbury. Actually to the north of Wingham. Needs its own location entry.
30 Jul 2009 10:53
This pub is in a tiny village on the Canterbury to Folkestone road, and is nowhere near Canterbury. Could it be entered under "Denton" instead? Has a bus stop, and is a good base for country walks in the surrounding beautiful countryside.
30 Jul 2009 10:51
If I want to eat in Canterbury, instead of dining out, I go here. Beer good, food good. Good.
30 Jul 2009 10:47
Very good pub, and away from all those furriners in the city centre (especially the tadpoles).
30 Jul 2009 10:45
The best bet for beer near the bus station. This is one of the 'Spoons with a "Scrote & Nutter Corner" which you possibly may want to avoid unless you are one yourself or an anthropologist. It's on the far right as you go in. There's a little pavement drinking area, although no view except for the occasional pretty girl. I've always found the guest ales to be good. My drinking-den of choice in Canterbury.
30 Jul 2009 10:42
I use this one when I know I've got a wait for a train at the Canterbury West station. I've found the guest beers palatable (except on one very hot day a few years ago), and that's all I'm interested in. Big selling point -the beer's much cheaper than the other pubs nearby. They were selling a Lee's beer at c�1-70 a couple of weeks back, so I had three in a hurry instead of one at leisure!
30 Jul 2009 10:37
Perhaps the marginal exception to the rule concerning drinking in Ramsgate town centre, that you don't go into any pub from which you can't see the sea when outside if you want
1) Real ale,
2) Locals who look as if they once had mothers.
27 Jul 2009 10:47
The Churchill Tavern, Ramsgate
Almost as good as the Artillery for beer. It's where foreigners such as English language students used to go, hence it's an oasis of civilization in an area where Regency town houses are literally falling into ruin. Parking impossible.
27 Jul 2009 10:42
Best best for real ale in Ramsgate, and not easily matched in East Kent. However, it is small and doesn't do much in the way of edible solids. If you want a big pub for your loud group and food with it, go to the Churchill at the other end of Royal Road.
27 Jul 2009 10:40
Royal Harbour Brewhouse and Bakers, Ramsgate
This is your best best for decent beer if you're arriving in Ramsgate by boat and don't want to walk any distance. It's the grey castellated building on the right hand side, facing the town on your way in to the harbour.
If you're from the European mainland (what the English like to call the "Continent", as thought they lived on some oil rig instead of half an island), you will find some good Belgian beers with which you may be familiar. Be prepared to be shocked by the prices -the English have a "thing" about alcohol, like the Norwogs but without the ability to spend the revenue raised from the alcohol tax on decent public services.
If you want to go further, go up the staircase on the left side of the harbour and find the Foy Boat, Artillery Arms and Churchill (featured on this site).
There's a Weatherspoons knockoff in Harbour Street if you are minding a boat, are short of money and want to drink lots of cheap real ale from some boring brewery. (This pub is not yet on site, and I forget the name).
Be careful about going further into the town centre, especially in the evenings! The town is competing for a top place in the "South East England Incest & Kiddy-Diddling League" (info from Social Services), and some of the locals have a habit of ripping the bark off their trees and attacking anyone who looks foreign, gay or too well dressed. Be warned.
27 Jul 2009 10:34
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The Golden Lion, Luddesdowne
The "other" pub in Luddesdowne, and rather in the shadow of the Cock which is a pity. A quiet, friendly place in a delectable location -real countryside but easy to get to from Junction 2 on the M2. Take the road into the hills running west from Cuxton, and persevere until you meet the pub. Large car park.
20 Aug 2009 11:12