BITE user comments - mpage
Comments by mpage
Good points: Great location, dark like pubs used to be, spacious, no piped music, acceptable if unexciting beer (limited choice, Directors, Courage Best, Blacksheep) large decent garden with some slides for kids, small car park, newspaper, a landlord and bar staff who are trying hard.
Bad points: The outside is no guide to the inside. This pub could be a jewel but it is shabby, needs a good clean and a lick of paint. Visited at weekend, daytime, late April 2012 and the heating was set uncomfortably high. Door onto garden banged shut loud and endlessly by returning smokers - please Mr Landlord attach a device to make it close quietly.
Neutral points: Middle-aged local men hogged the bar (as is their right) but this forced everyone else to squeeze through an extremely narrow passage to get to the main room.
There is a new generic menu (laminated easywipe plastic) which offers a wide rage of cheap meals as determined by the brewery rather than the pub cook. Nothing fancy but acceptable grub at fair prices which is sometimes exactly what you want.
22 Apr 2012 12:44
Pub: Dark pub down a side alley. Small but pleasant concrete patio garden to the rear, albeit under the flightpath on some days. Pleasant, friendly, attentive barstaff.
Beer: Three cask ales including an excellent pint of Timothy Taylor Landlord.
Food: Oh dear. �8.95 for half a dozen strands of supermarket tagiatelli in a watery tomato sauce is really taking the piss. The burger and chips was considered to be distinctly sub par. Menu recently reprinted is hard to navigate and written in a pointless handwritten font.
We four may return on occasion for the decent beer but will never eat here again. Landlord - your parsimony has just lost you a steady stream of future income.
For good beer (Fullers) AND good food walk 100 yards along the Green to The Princes Head. The seating is more comfortable, too.
8 Jul 2011 10:17
Used to be what was once called "a basic working men's local" in the days when a pint of mild as 26p, bitter 27p. Last visited in early 2010 - alas it had a foresale sign outside. Indeed, most of Oxton Road has now disappeared.
The old Higsons sign has a very faded picture of an idyllic country scene - a vale.
18 Feb 2011 15:25
Have been drinking here for over thirty five years, albeit not continuously. What was once a dull unfriendly Whitbread tied house populated by poachers and cornerboys is now an excellently run pub with a fine selection of beers.
Try Trappers Hat or Oystercatcher (stout) both made by a micro-brewery that operates out of a farm in nearby Brimstage. The most delicious beers you will have tried in decades.
18 Feb 2011 15:19
Beer is an afterthought at the overpriced cafe. They've added a second beer - Theakstons - but have no idea how to keep it. My pint was ice cold, cloudy and headless. Fixed tables at which they insist on serving you. Zero atmosphere.
Ok for warm summer evenings if you are in the area and want to sit outside because it is quiet. The pub at the other end of the street went out of business several years ago - not enough trade.
There is no good reason to drink here.
18 Feb 2011 15:09
The Basset Hound, Thingwall
It's changed utterly since 1977. But even then it was considered a place to miss because of the fizzy keg beer. "Whitbread. Trophy Bitter. The Pint That Thinks It's a. . . .Pint."
I agree with wirraldrinker, the ale is bland and the food, though not expensive is unremarkable.
I don't visit the Wirral much any more and am astounded at the spread of these dreadful Greene King pubs where you are supposed to memorise your table number because its easier for their record keeping system. The "Landlord's Choice" ale is actually the Brewery's choice - an unremarkable 3.5% bland bitter and the same as in other Greene King pubs tried in the area.
The Basset is popular with retired folk and local oldies clubs who want a cheap but acceptable set meal. Everyone else is better off going to half mile along the road to the Fox and Hounds (food service ceases promptly at 2pm when the deep fryer gets switched of).
22 Apr 2012 19:02