BITE user comments - bob_brown
Comments by bob_brown
Astonishingly noisy and overheated. It seems to be tryign to be the equivalent of the teenage high street lager-swilling cattle-barns for thirty-somethings.
Music too loud, so everyone shouts. If you want to drink expensive lager while watching office temps shout at each other over a plate of cheesy chips, this is your place.
14 Aug 2008 20:21
Its expensive, and slow.
Like the Anchor round the corner its a genuinely old building that looks fake.
But you can get a seat and its warm in winter (and sometimes cool in summer) and its convenient and its a lot, lot nicer than the Mudlark ten metres away
Of course if wanted to walk a hundred metres you could get to three or four better pubs easily - but for very lazy people who find themselves suddenly in need of a drink while walking underneath London Bridge, you can't beat it.
And you can get a table for six or eight most nights so its good if you have a group who want to talk.
14 Aug 2008 20:18
At least you can get a seat!
We were there last night, and I popped in a coupel of weeks back as well. I honestly think it was fine. The beer was OK if not exactly exotic (Youngs, Adnams, Bombardier), the natives seemed friendly. It isn't wall-to-wall suits apart for an hour or two in the early evening (which is an improvement on half the pubs in the area), and you could both get served and walk from one side of the bar to the other. Nice building as well.
14 Aug 2008 20:13
The reviews below talk about the hotel bar upstairs but don';t mention the much better bar downstairs, at the "Blomsbury bowling lanes"
OK, this isn't a pub, its a bowling alley in a converted basement car park underneath a midprice tourist hotel. But the bar is open to non-bowlers and the beer is cheap and its actually a really nice place for a quiet drink and a chat with your mates. And there are some really very cute barmaids.
In the evening it gets crowded and becomes more of a club atmosphere, dancing, karaoke, whatever but in the afternoon its comparatively empty, its cool (in both senses) there is a smoking area and unbelievably the beer is almost cheap - 2.80 to 3.00 a pint, which is less than most pubs round here, never mind clubs. The line up changes but it tends to be posh lager - last week it was Mean Time from Greenwich, Bitburger (a decent default German pilsner) and Bernard - an unpasteurised hoppy Czeck Pilsner which is actually really rather nice.
The decor and atmosphere is quite strange - a huge barn of a room with visible ducts that looks like a cross between an underground garage and a night club (that's because it IS and underground garage that has been retrofitted as a club). Much of it is retro American vaguely early 60s - but its not so much what we think of as "60s" nowadays as the sort of 60s America that wore short-sleeve shirts and slacks and had crew-cuts and voted for Nixon rather than Kennedy. I'm no expert but it looks as if the bowling equipment is old 1960s American stuff refurbished. And there are odd little areas laid out like diners in a couple of places, comfy sofas in another, and a sort of platform with flying ducks on the wall like a living room and even what looks like a tiny 20-seater cinema. None of which is in use in the afternoon.
Staff had a reputation for being a bit grumpy but I never noticed. They were pleasant, polite, and open to some friendly chat. chat. Maybe they have different people on at night or maybe they just get overworked. But every time I've been here in the afternoon they were fine. And did I say that they were mostly very, very cute?
14 Aug 2008 20:07
It looks great, thought the refurb after the paradise closed down is a little bit like a stage set. Almost like someone's idea of what a traditional pub ought to look like, rather than what one actually is.
Lots of attractive thirty-something women the first time I went there. But that might just be because it was early on in the evening.
Also the terrace at the front is a nice place to sit. And of course you can smoke there which is a great boost to a pub these days - at least it is in south-east London - pubs with no outside smoking space, or small or unpleasant ones have been taking a hammering commercially. And when a pub starts losing money it can go downhill fast. What you rally need is somewhere large and airy and pleasant enough that its not just a smoker's ghetto. so others will sit there as well and chat. Which is what a pub is about.
The Albert has got that, or at least it has in the day. When I walked past later that same evening they were packing away the terrace and locking the doors even though it was still light. No idea why.
Beet was great and food looked good but both pretty expensive. More somewhere to take your significant other for a meal and a chat than a place for a session.
8 Jun 2008 19:07
Walekd past one wevenign and heard some music and went in and it was some sort of rock jam session. Bloody good fun if a bit retro. Sort of like a mildly psychedelic rock club in Brighton in the early 1970s Yes I am old enough to remember such places - though most of the musicians here looked far too young to have even heard of the kind of music they were playing.
Only hassle was they locked the back door at 9pm so smokers - or anyone who wanted to cool off - could no longer go into the garden. And it was disgustingly hot, it was a hot day and the bar was packed. Of course the smokers just went out into the street which was a lot worse from the point of view of the neighbours. Absurd idea to shut the garden.
I was on my own but met about half a dozen people worth chatting to. A bit of a retro ex-hippy feel to the niogth, but like I said, bloody good fun. I'll go again.
8 Jun 2008 18:53
Recently heavily re-furbished and now looks a bit less traditional than before. Its a pity they've lost the horseshoe bar. Though the new clear glass windows mean that you can see in from the street which seems to help quite a lot. And they still have the big garden out the back of course.
The London Pride is decent enough and a welcome change in a bit of a real ale desert (not so sure about their brief flirtation with Speckled Hen)
Still very much a local and all the better for it. One of a dying breed in London.
8 Jun 2008 18:43
That'll be the Fat Frog :-)
Once the staple after-midnight diet of half the Irish pubs in south-east London.
The Graduate is a a nice enough place. A bit of a Tardis-pub, with almost no street frontage and a large wedge-shaped bar behind. As others have said, its the real thing. And hasn't been done up. See it while it lasts.
8 Jun 2008 18:37
Perfectly normal old-style local. Everyone seems to know everyone else. Decent Guiness, no real beer.
You can smoke outside if you don't mind the traffic.
8 Jun 2008 18:34
The Cutty Sark Tavern, Greenwich
I'm afraid the place is going downhill. I still love the location, but the service was impossible.
Went there with a few friends a couple of weeks ago. Long wait for service. EVERY draught beer was off except extra-cold Guinness and cooking lager, and even that didn't taste quite right. Not even any cider. We asked about food and were told that they didn't do food, even though there were menus on the tables.
"Oh we've stopped now because we don't have enough staff to do food any more" Which might be true of course.
This looks like a management disaster turning into a beer disaster.
8 Jun 2008 18:27
The Catford Bridge Tavern, Catford
I really liked the jazz I saw here one Sunday. Very laid-back 50s-style jam. Not what I expect from Catford at all. Relaxed and fiendly. Sat outside under an awning to smoke and watch all Catford go by. For what that's worth.
3 Dec 2007 21:55
The Cutty Sark Tavern, Greenwich
I really do want to like this pub. N, I take that back, I DO like this pub. But...
The beer is a little expensive, the food is vastly so. Fourteen quid for fish and chips? WHat's that about? You can get a bigger plate of the same stuff for not much more than half the price in the Pilot, and for less than half the price in any of half a dozen cafes within a few minutes walk. Beer is OK - no, better than OK, but not up to the standard you'd want from a destination pub.
Its a lovely location just enough outside of the main tourist drag of Greenwich to be a little less crowded and hectic, but not so far away that those of a nervous disposition risk encountering any of the grottier side of south-east London. And it feels a little fake. It's not fake, its been there for two centuries, but it feels like it. As if some corporate management have taken it over and don't quite know what to do with it. It is aimed at tourists? Locals? Real-ale freaks? Families? Students? Pub-crawlers? Or all of them at once? Bar staff wear uniforms, always a bad sign.
The location is unbeatable. I'd advise any tourist visiting London to take a boat to Greenwich and stroll downriver to it - the walk alone is worth the journey, and you will get a view of London you rarely see in the postcards (literally). And the inside looks like a set from Pirates of the Caribbean. (Or rather the other way round, seeing as this is actually the real thing) Its a great place to sit outside with some mates on a cold dry day and have a fag and watch the river flow. Drinkers with kids love it in summer, there is room to run around safely in the little public square that is right outside the door. But if you are on your own in the evening, or if you want to eat, or if you are up for a session, it can be just a little disappointing.
3 Dec 2007 21:44
Another under-patronised old working-class Gin Palace in a road that's full of them (William IV, Angerstein, Antigallican, and more) No real beer. Customers seemed to be basically mildy pissed Scotsmen watching the footy.
On the other hand, when someone said something outrageously silly at the bar and I made a comment, I was included in the conversation pretty easily and three pints and couple of cigs later we were getting on like a house on fire. So my brief visit was quite sociable. And the barmaid looked very cuddly.
3 Dec 2007 21:29
Pretty full on a Sunday afternoon. Quite a few 20-something or 30-something couples, many with young kids. A amattering of older men watching the footy, a handful of teenagers. Going by the accents these are mostly Londoners not visitors or tourists.
Obviously a local, but a bit upmarket by the standards of East Greenwich. They obviously want to be cool - jazz as background music, mildly more imaginative menu than the neighbours (not quite "gastro" but a bit tricksy, and not expensive), art on the walls.
The beer was good and the folk seemed friendly. And some of the young mummys looked very yummy.
3 Dec 2007 21:21
Large, quiet, pleasant. It feels like it ought to be somewhere else, such as next door to a railway station in a small northern city. No customers obviously under the age of about 65 apart from one friendly young drunk and a small group of women who wandered in, chatted to the barmaid for a few minutes and wandered out again. Racing on the TV.
Something of a fifties feel to the interior. Not at all a plastic-and-chrome rock-and-roll 1950s but a suburban wood-paneled dark-grained pipe-smoking sort of 1950s. Model ships. Horse-racing memorabilia. Lots of dark wood around. It looks lit the sort of pub people who have hobbies go to.
Both two times I've been there they had a vase of fresh flowers on the bar. Lilies once. A really nice touch. If I was lookign for a place for a drink and a chat in East Greenwich this is the pub I'd choose I think. Just a pity there were no customers. Apart from the view its a nicer pub than the Cutty Sark a hundred yards away, and the beers a lot cheaper! Maybe I went on a bad day.
3 Dec 2007 21:08
Popped in on a Sunday evening for a quick pint on my way back from somewhere else. No real beer, so I had a Guiness, which was OK.
The karaoke was fun, in a naff kind of way. Small, rather snug pub, with quite a lot of people who seemed to know each other. Not at all scary. Though a bit middle-aged. Definitely a local.
3 Dec 2007 20:15
Really nice boozer.
I'm from Sussex so I am biased, but Harvey's beer must surely be the best in the world and these people keep it really well. This week they had four on: Mild and Pale and Best Bitter and "Bonfire Boys" Old, all good, and we had one of each each. Proper dark mild, hard to come by these days, and worth going to the Oak just for the Mild!
I didn't have any food as I had to get home but my mate's plates smelled wonderful and the portions were HUGE.
11 Nov 2007 00:36
Really nice boozer.
I'm from Sussex so I am biased, but Harvey's beer must surely be the best in the world and these people keep it really well. This week they had four on: Mild and Pale and Best Bitter and "Bonfire Boys" Old, all good, and we had one of each each. Proper dark mild, hard to come by these days, and worth going to the Oak just for the Mild!
I didn't have any food as I had to get home but my mate's plates smelled wonderful and the portions were HUGE.
11 Nov 2007 00:36
The Old Thameside Inn, London Bridge
Its not old, but it is by the Thames. Really quite plastic and synthetic. Not well laid-out either - if its crowded its hard to get around, little doors and steps and stuff.
I can't remember the beer.
Not somewhere that attracts me back
14 Aug 2008 20:23