BITE user comments - seasiderMM
Comments by seasiderMM
Not my preferred choice however, ... I popped in here the other day and the new landlords are making a good go of it. Irish twist. Lively and fun. If you haven't visited since the new people took over (last year?) might be worth checking out again.
24 Mar 2010 16:16
More of a restaurant / cocktail bar than a pub. Very little real ale. Good lager selection.
The kitchen serves some very excellent food.
29 Jan 2010 19:04
Further to my review of 20 Jan 2008, food improving and some beer selection getting better.
1 Jun 2009 11:26
Excellent pint of Norfolk Wherry. Good Sunday roasts and superb desserts.
1 Jun 2009 10:26
This has a good atmosphere on a Friday night. Good for if you like lager or Pimms(!). Worth a look anyway.
3 Mar 2009 22:25
Sad to say that the food in the Plough has really gone downhill this year,... maybe due to staff changeover perhaps? Can anyone explain?
10 Dec 2008 16:48
Has lots of TVs for watching sport, and serves several varieties of Lager. Close to St. Albans City FC. Needs some TLC.
9 Apr 2008 15:18
This standards in this pub have dropped significantly.
20 Jan 2008 18:56
Serves pies lunchtimes on matchdays. Fills up with Spurs supporters. Good humoured. Good choice for pre-match lubrication. Recommended.
8 Jan 2008 19:39
Older crowd with strict door policy to keep the youngsters out. Reasonable staff. Decent drinks of all types. A good place to try out if you're new to Bournemouth and you want to avoid the puking louts. Toilets a bit grotty though.
29 Nov 2007 12:56
Good upstairs area, and the Dutch snacks (like Crocquettes) are excellent. Some really great Dutch bar staff. Definitely worth a visit.
25 Nov 2007 22:58
As the Vintry has undergone a complete makeover, the previous terrible scores... "Current user rating: 3.8/10 (rated by 30 users)" are now quite irrelevant. Does BITE have a facility to reset and start again I wonder?
25 Nov 2007 14:52
This is a decent pub that will offend nobody, run well with a giant restaurant area and owned and run by the people who run the great Squires Fish and Chip restaurant down the road. Not an inspiring place or a drinkers pub however.
22 Nov 2007 18:31
Remarkable! The Vintry has had a massive makeover. Looks good so far. The old user rating of 3.5/10 seems somewhat harsh now.
23 Sep 2007 14:58
This has improved so much over the years from the old grot-pot days. These days it is welcoming, ok beers, reasonable food, good atmosphere.
13 Sep 2007 12:03
This is not a pub, but a lovely old-style restaurant with 147 different dishes on the menu.
24 Aug 2007 23:04
The Brocket Arms, Ayot St. Lawrence
A wonderful pub and definitely unique. Excellent beers. 14th Century building. Difficult to find (check the website). Extremely friendly crowd.
24 Aug 2007 22:59
Ember Inns Pub, ie: decent quality chain pub serving standard meals.
5 Jul 2007 16:53
Good pub - nice lunches - busy working crowd. McMullen and Sons Pub with reasonable Herts ale selection. Recommended.
5 Jul 2007 16:51
Good location. Cheesy chips delicious and the beer was fresh and tasty. Decor somewhat sterile.
27 Jun 2007 15:43
This place has new management who we can hope will improve it some more - With other great pubs nearby, competition is intense, so the new managers have a job on their hands. It's an OK pub at the moment although the real ales are not as fresh as they might be, and it does feel a bit of a sprawling mess at the moment. The building and history are lovely. Staff pleasant. Sunday pub quiz attracts a large crowd of largely non-drinkers who sit in teams of 10 hoping to grab the 50 quid prize money. They should award beer tokens instead of money. That would sort the wheat from the chaff! :)
22 May 2007 13:21
For a city centre pub, this is an excellent joint. Very good atmosphere inside, frequented by people of all ages. Exceptionally jolly. Sheeps Ale OK, but could do better.
22 May 2007 12:39
Laid back pub makes enjoyable evening. An excellent alternative to the Sopwell Lane pubs. The beer is great; ESB at 5.5% will bang your head, or three lighter ales on offer too. Selection of delightful 'hand-made' crisps which includes Parsnip and Parmesan flavours. The decor looks like it was last done in 1982 and so it is a bit like stepping into the past. The best sort of place to drink Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry! hahaha.
12 May 2007 10:41
The Hare and Hounds, St Albans
One of three great pubs to choose from on Sopwell Lane, this has good beers (including a nice Tribute, and excellent Timothy Taylor Landlord ), excellent food (duck especially), lively locals of all ages and very good staff. Lovely old building, with a quirky layout.
12 May 2007 10:20
The Sir Richard Steele, Belsize Park
Very gorgeous interiors and interesting drinkers, some gorgeous and some thug elements. Beers only so-so. Dirty.
8 May 2007 22:30
Reasonable pub, above average for the area. Food OK. Beer good. Friendly staff.
8 May 2007 22:12
Very reasonable selection of good beers and prices in the centre of Soho. Adnams, Landlord and 3 other beers plus standard range of lagers. Excellent on a sunny day when you can sit in the chairs outside. The staff were very friendly indeed.
21 Apr 2007 11:43
Lovely restaurant and large comfortable bar attached, serving some good well kept ales.
16 Apr 2007 20:19
Found it dirty, service was poor and the whole experience was fairly charmless overall. Very pleased to see they brew their own beers.
16 Apr 2007 20:12
Jack Stamps Beer House, Streatham
An excellent thing about Jack Stamps is that it is next door to Taylors. So it's only a 10 yard walk to get to a decent pub. Errrmmm difficult to think of anything else...
16 Apr 2007 20:06
It is weird how this pub has been so disappointing over the last 2 decades when the location is just so great.
2 Apr 2007 13:03
Great country pub, great beers, very popular, fantastic on a sunny day, but the queues can be off-putting (due to its popularity). Tricky to find. Arrive early for food orders. Extremely nice and friendly staff.
2 Apr 2007 12:57
Refreshing indeed! Extremely friendly pub - wonderful staff, good beers and a really pleasant crowd of drinkers.
15 Mar 2007 23:46
The Churchill Arms, Kensington
The pub itself is very nice, although I thought the Thai food was awful.
7 Mar 2007 02:44
The Windsor Castle, Kensington
I'm always pleased by visits to this lovely pub. Often crowded. Nice people.
7 Mar 2007 02:42
Crowded. Beer and wine passable. Steaks very good. Nice interior. Jolly atmosphere.
6 Mar 2007 05:01
Good pub, very friendly management and staff, crowded. Ideal place for early afternoon drink before the crush starts.
4 Mar 2007 18:32
Excellent traditional pub. Only slight problem is the popularity which can make it a bit of a scrum!
4 Mar 2007 17:30
Not a great drinkers pub - crowded and uncomfortable - maybe a little too "French". :P
The pub has some interesting history and associations. Restaurant is good.
4 Mar 2007 17:22
This has been one of the great pubs in London for years. Definitely worth a visit for anyone interested in good pubs.
19 Feb 2007 10:12
Pub has a nice interior. Interesting bunch of customers. Wines are good. Apart from the guinness which was good, the rest of the beers varied from poor to very poor. The food is excellent including Fried Pigs Ears to steak tartar which was yummy although over-salted.
10 Feb 2007 08:01
To clarify for the pedantic: its excellent at what it does "Organic-bistro bar". It's just not a "beery"-type place.
7 Dec 2006 02:32
OK, this place is great. It gets a full score of 10/10 even though it has some major major drawbacks. Putney is very lucky to have this place.
It's a sort of organic pub-bistro really, not a trad boozer and definitely not for lovers of real ale. Drinkers and foodies range people aged 25-45.
First the bad bits ... it's not cheap!!! Wines are overpriced and selection is weak. I tried a Chilean White which was absolutely rubbish, though the Italian Pinot Grigio was really excellent. Usual selection of slightly incoherent Eastern Europeans serving, although the short blonde one is a total babe and could charm the pants off Mr Scrooge.
Now the good bits: Really Comfortable! Nice chairs - leather sofas, wooden tables. It's a good place to hang out. The food is good. The customers are polite. Generally, it is many times better than all those shabby all-bar-ones and dreadful crappy pubs near Clapham.
BTW The on-tap beer selection is awful for real ale. Though the owner claims he'll order in and stock any beer bottle you request if he doesn't currently stock it. I might test this out one day by asking for Palmers!
Basically, if you can afford it and are happy drinking wine/cider/bottled beers, it is totally cool hangout. :)
5 Dec 2006 08:23
The Great Northern Railway Tavern, Hornsey
Largely unknown gem of a pub. Well worth the extra trip.
28 Feb 2006 20:59
I'll always remember it for a mid-90s boxing day when there was a hilarious full-on bar brawl with punters being thrown along the pub floor. Police stopped it awww ;)
28 Feb 2006 20:49
Beautiful pub will a lot of wannabe-posh fat people. Definitely eat there if you can afford to.
28 Feb 2006 19:54
The Fishermans Haunt, Christchurch
Was there the other day...best pint of Ringwood 49er i've had in the Christchurch area, really great Scampi and chips. Lots of doggies and laughing old ladies. Could be worse!
28 Feb 2006 19:25
Guys, give the slightly nutty couple who run this place a break...the food is good (pricy), and the beer is OK, so all in all the pub is OK. Not great, but not terrible.
28 Feb 2006 19:22
The Cottonwood Hotel, Bournemouth
The hotel has a pub which serves real ales - usually including Ringwood. There is traditional jazz and other music several evenings a week. The location right on the cliff top is fantastic, and there is a sun terrace, although the internal decor maybe needs updating.
12 Dec 2005 03:12
The Christopher Creeke , Bournemouth
If you can ignore the really awful outside (dirty picnic tables), inside you will find a surprisingly nice and relaxing wine-bar type pub. No real ales, but if you are a lager drinker and want to avoid some of the dodgy places try it. A (free?) discount card will get you around 10% off. So far so good ... we'll see how it develops and hope it doesn't get too poncy.
8 Nov 2005 19:14
Older crowd.
The real ales are Cask-Marqued, but they could improve a bit here ... maybe they could get some more varied and better real ales in.
Loud live music on Fridays and Saturdays with bands doing covers, not original music.
20 Mar 2005 01:09
The Commodore Hotel, Bournemouth
Good real ales available. Quiz nights twice a week. Friendly atmosphere.
9 Mar 2005 01:42
The Spyglass and Kettle, Southbourne
Was in there for a drink on Sunday - it really is more of a restaurant than a pub.
The RINGWOOD Beer was nice though.
25 Jan 2005 14:16
Excellent Pub.
Nice Beers Real Ale - Ringwood Beers 49er and Best.
Excellent Menu although Starlight Indian Restaurant is a few doors away.
Fisherman's Theme.
Pub Quiz Wednesday and occasional specials nights.
10 Jan 2005 18:40
The King Street Run, Cambridge
The only pub I've been in where an unconscious man lay on the floor in front of the bar - when I enquired about the man to the landlord he said - "oh just ignore him!" (1987)
17 Dec 2004 06:29
Pretty Good Place as a family restaurant... not a drinkers pub.
17 Dec 2004 06:25
Sad to see it demolished. Had many good nights here in the late nineties.
It used to have the nickname "the airport lounge" due to its dreadful architecture.
How many "luxury flats" can they build around here? I assume the developers will go bankrupt in the crash.
17 Dec 2004 06:16
This pub has a very bad reputation. The owner ought to address this.
The size and location of the pub means that it could be a great place.
17 Dec 2004 06:08
I too agree with the remarks made by Adam Solley.
The old Jug of Ale was a good pub with decent beers and would be a first stop on a night out, and it used to be a refreshing change from the hideous pubs like the Litten Tree.
They have turned a decent pub into a piece of crap, thus making the Litten Tree seem not quite so bad at all...!!! I hope they go bankrupt soon.
17 Dec 2004 05:48
The Slug and Lettuce, Bournemouth
Very bad pub: Crap beer, awful furniture, dreary nordic decor. Gives the word "pub" a bad name!
17 Dec 2004 05:38
A chain-pub with chain-food and lots of provision for kiddies.
The view over the sea is lovely, the position of the pub is really great.
Pub employment policy interesting: a barman who cannot add-up and too drugged to understand menus? I assume the job conditions are terrible.
In the right hands this could be a fantastic pub.
17 Dec 2004 05:35
The food is inexpensive and quite tasty, served by Eastern Europeans.
There is a horrible large TV Screen with irritating football shown on it.
Overall, the pub is OK.
17 Dec 2004 05:29
White Hart Hotel, St Albans
The place is going through some changes... They are trying to put a fancy restaurant in the back. Bar area is cosy. Beers OK. Atmosphere lacking.
24 Mar 2010 16:20