The North Pole, North Kensington

Lovely spacious pub, catches the sun (when it appears), friendly staff. Best Sunday lunch we have found in the area.

11 Sep 2010 13:11

Orange Tree, Richmond

Nice enough pub but please avoid the food. We visited yesterday evening and ordered burger and chips. Big mistake, it was the worst burger we had ever had. It reminded me of spam fritters that we served at school in the 80's. Disgusting congealed fatty....god knows what it was made of. I'm not a big Macdonalds fan but their burgers are ten times betterr, and half the price! Theres no excuse these days, and not for �10. Even some cheap frozen packet of burgers from the supermarket would have been better. It was so awful the taste stayed with me all night. Unbelieveably the girl who came to take our hardly eaten food away, didn't ask if there was a problem with the food, but asked if we wanted dessert......
The sad thing is my husband said that the Orange Tree was one of the first pubs to do good pub food back in the 70's and won awards. It's a shame they let things slip.

11 Sep 2010 11:42

The Fat Badger, Notting Hill

my husband and I visited this pub for lunch a few weeks ago and ordered lunch. It seemed a bit grotty so we did regret ordering but were extremely surprised at the quality of a chicken salad that we ordered. It was the best chicken salad I had ever had. we decided that we would go back for an evening meal at a later date and sit upstairs in the more restaurant area.

what a mistake. when we arrived I went upstairs to find a table while my husband ordered drinks at the bar. I soon came back down as it was empty and smelt horrible, like it had been cleaned with dirty water. the whole place feels sticky and the toilet doors are filthy.

whilst waiting for our food I went to the bar for a second round of drinks. service was very slow, the bar staff seemed oblivious to customers and one appeared annoyingly self obsessed, the type you would imagine describes themselves as 'crazy', like it was a good thing. having waited for what seemed like 10 minutes she served the customer next to me, as he had gone when she went to give him his change I got his attention for her to let him know so she obviously knew I was there. she then went to the opposite end of the bar to serve someone who had just arrived. a male bar tender who had just been chatting then decided to serve someone to my right who had also just appeared at the bar. i was so irritated by this time I went and asked my husband to get the drinks as I didn't trust myself to not get angry.

when the food arrived the chicken salad was nothing like the one that I had ordered a few weeks ago. it was ordinary and plain, we sat and ate while two large dogs ran around in front of us fighting. .........we will not be going back.

25 Jul 2010 18:32