The White Hart, West Norwood

Where do we start? Let's staff with the bar staff. Seems to be all slightly rough looking lads and one very high pitched voice male who is very chipper and seems to brighten your mood by just speaking, excellent. They have an extremely limited selection of drinks and I believe no ale, or at least not one you'd like to drink. Go in and you're on the Kronenbourg. If you don't like lager you shouldn't really be in this pub, but since all of the pissed up patrons chug down so much of the stuff, the lager here is fresh and crisp. You do notice a nice taste to Kronenbourg you don't get from a can or most other pubs which sell better things (so why would you be drinking Kronenbourg anyway?).

The people who frequent this pub are, without being too harsh, people who will never make any significant impact on this earth at all, unless they drunkenly stumble infront of a train. I've never seen so many drunk chubby white males in my entire life, everyone's got a slur, everyone has a beer belly and the place is davoid of any females whatsoever. I've gone to male only public schools with more women there than this place. Everytime I enter I feel like I should have gone somewhere else, or that it'd be more enterprising to get 6 cans of something from the local offy and gone home to chug them while watching Family Guy re-runs on BBC 3. That's furthered by the fact you have to walk through a smoke covered entrance and past all the local puffers blowing into your face and generally getting in your way. Then the toilets. That's just a puddle of urine stretching from wall to wall with a small dip at the end of it where, presumably, some occasionally might accidentally get some piss into.

The jukebox is good, but again I'd rather listen to youtube and drink Jack Daniels at home.

Just avoid this dive and come to the railway.

1 May 2013 16:34

The Railway, Tulse Hill

A pretty decent pub. Every time I leave this pub I feel like I should have stayed longer, but then check my wallet and realise my choice was probably for the best.

Starting off the bad.

For a SW London pub this is one of the most expensive I've been to, about £6 a glass of wine and nearly £5er for all of the beers, it's a little steep. However, if you want cheap, go to the dive which is the 'White Hart' over the road (if you didn't get that, avoid the white hart).
The bar staff are friendly and comprised of several cheerful, attractive ladies and they sell a decent variety of drinks, however the time it takes to get served is, at the best of times, awful. They serve a lot of food so most of the staff you'll see will be clearing tables and ushering plates to patrons, not filling glasses with decent ale. When the place gets busy the service gets even worse, and I've never once seen the outside bar open.

That aside, if you want a quiet beer and don't mind paying for it, I can think of few pubs in SW London I'd rather go to. The location is fantastic (right on the A23 and South Circ intersection outside Tulse Hill station), the building is unmistakable, they have a smoking area to the right and a big beer garden outside, they play live sports, have table football, pool (£1 a game) and table tennis outside and even have a seperate dining area and booths outside where you can go, chill and have a little smoke in peace, quiet and relative outside warmth.

Overall one of the best pubs in the area, far better than anything else in Tulse Hill, and the fact that my commute is from Tulse Hill station and I live over the road means that mine's a Doom Bar and I'll be on the bench outside just by the door.

Cheers!

1 May 2013 16:26