The Hoop and Grapes, City Of London

A friend and I had boycotted this pub for a number of months (despite it being close to work and doing good chips!). We had been there one summer evening enjoying a nice bottle of wine and had decided to get another one at about 10pm. At about 10.15pm, the barman decided that as it wasn't that busy he wanted to get an earlier train home and so more or less threw us out. We didn't have a problem leaving early as there are plenty of bars in the area, but we did object to having paid for a reasonably expensive bottle of wine, not being able to finish it within 15 minutes of buying it (and not being warned that they were closing early), and being treated very rudely.

We gave this pub another chance for a colleague's leaving do at lunchtime, but soon wished we hadn't. The landlord was very pleasant on the phone and we agreed that I would pick up a menu so that we could pre-order as there were 15 of us.

Drinks were served relatively quickly by a nice waitress and we had the upstairs of the pub all to ourselves.

Things went completely downhill from there. Having pre-ordered and the pub not being that busy, we expected the food to come out at roughly the same time. However, the meals came out about every 7-10 minutes, 2 at a time in the strangest order. People had ordered bowls of chips to go with a starter or a main and these came out well before the other courses, which meant by the time the main courses did come out they were cold. The chicken caesar salads came out last, but came without the chicken so had to be sent back. From the first meal coming out to the last arriving, we had been in there well over 45 minutes and so people were just starting their meals when others had been finished for a while. I had to keep going down to ask when the last meals were arriving. It was a shambles. In addition, the food was all deep fried and not very nice.

To add insult to injury, the 'chef' came out to ask us how it had been and as we mumbled 'mmm fine' in a very British way, he looked quite smug and self-satisfied as though it was a job well done.

Will not be returning.

7 Apr 2008 15:58

The Mallard, Teddington

We went to this pub last night for a birthday meal. Despite the previous comments, we all though that the decor was really lovely and the pub had a real homely feel to it. It didn't feel dark and dingy at all.

The food was really good - although you do have to have a 3 course menu, but at �22.50 we thought it was pretty good value and the cheese plate was huge!

The staff there were really friendly and couldn't have been nicer or more attentive.

We will definitely be going back, paticularly when the patio is open in the summer.

Overall this is a really good pub.

27 Apr 2007 12:25