Black Dog, Chilmark

When entering the Black Dog from the carpark one is immediately prepared for what might lurk within as you are forced to navigate a narrow corridor containing 3 choices: The Ladies, The Gents, or the bar. All three smell the same.

The barman is young and friendly, much younger and more friendly than the beef I found on my plate a short time later. My girlfriend and I ordered a "meat" lasagne (they don't like to be specific) and a roast beef and meandered our way to the dining room, conveniently kept very dark, presumably to help obscure what might arrive on your plate. The lasagne was an oily mass of, well, oil, nondescript meat and 3 layers of pasta one directly on top of the other. The coldslaw garnish was admittedly a classy touch, however. We both agreed on this. My beef looked dug up rather than cooked up, and was accompanied by some greyish matter that after some examination turned out to be a roast potato. Nudging up against this was a generous spoonful of peas, probably harvested some time in the late 1980s before being tinned. They too had turned grey.

We bravely tried to eat what was placed before us, but could not get far. The food would have raised a few disapproving eyebrows in any pub, or even in prison. We managed to get a small discount for our troubles, probably enough for me to go out and buy a few tinned vegetables.

1 Feb 2009 20:57