BITE user comments - declan88
Comments by declan88
The Canton Arms, South Lambeth
Here are too good comments about the Canton in its previous incarnation:
1. 8 Aug 2007
Spot the contributions from management (last three [4 really]comments). Yes pub is ok - nothing special but reasomable at what it attempts
2. 7 Aug 2007
Supurb local pub. Friendly atmosphere and friendly staff - it seems to be one of the few pubs in London which caters for young people where they bother to say goodbye to you when you leave. The homecooked food is of a high standard and is a little more creative than your average pub food. The menu also changes regularly. Very good pub quiz on Monday.
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Home cooked? ie pub reheated, industrially piped, mmm because that's how I always prepare my food at home. And people complain about politicians being mealy mouthed. It comes to something doesn't it when people serving you food try to to mislead you over one of life's basic necessities, a certain kind of sordid trough of deceit. Home cooked indeed!
7 Jun 2010 16:30
The Canton Arms, South Lambeth
5th June 2010 8pm Dinner �80 for 2
Sat outside for a few beers before dinner. Nice fellow drinkers and diners, although bar staff a bit slow and spaced out eg clutching head in hands woe is me type thing. Still beer OK.
Food later, good quality. Pork nice, lamb even better. Good portion too. Starter not bad. Service and wine pretty good. Only one thing missing from the food, heat. I like my hot food served really hot. The hot starter and both mains and side veg (extra �) were all tepid. Why I'm not sure, eg incompletely m'wave reheated or slow pass between kitchen and waiters? Didn't mention it as by the time they've fixed/ denied it/ whatever, the moment has passed especially where its everything rather than just one thing. Of course the other thing is where only one person's dinner needs attention, the other half can feel guilty wolfing away, while you wait. For the price, I'd expect it all to be right first time. I think there are better restaurants nearish by eg 100 yards up the road Estrella or Angels and Gypsies in Camberwell, although the Canton is probably still getting its act together, so could improve with time.
I'd go again, but probably not for the food.
7 Jun 2010 16:16
The Dulwich Woodhouse, Sydenham
I've been to this pub years ago when that kind of refurb was perhaps a good thing considering the delapidated state of many pubs as was then the case in SE London. Now it is just another computer designed one size fits all refitted pub. And that's the thing about Young's pubs these days. they took over a pub in SE5 which was PACKED full of art college students and the stuffy manager frightened them all away. Pity because that pub was one of three worth visiting, but the Youngs with their amplified over jolly radio 1-esque quiz master wasa real off putter for me. That and the lack of other customers. The manager's attitude matters as much as the refurb (or in style redecoration). And young's just don't have that in general.
16 Dec 2009 16:59
The Prince of Wales, Camberwell
Something funny about this place, but the beer and staff are OK.
15 Feb 2009 20:06
Surpringly worse after renaming itself (changing hands lprob) years ago. Staff indifferent, beer cold, but poss nnot too fresh. Something wrong with the place. But maybe thats the challenge of every railway pub in a city.
15 Feb 2009 20:04
Fair play to the couple who opened up this pub. They're nice. Previously it was hmmm, bad! Now its empty. Real ales are the theme to this pub. Its emptiness suggest the demographic analysis (ooer) wasn't spot on. Camberwell - high court judges/ tv musos, art college kids, hospital & research unit researchers ie scientists and medicos as the main en bloc employees/ populace. = wine for the Camberwell Grovers (probably from their favoured handful of importers or vineyard), lager and so forth for the studes, cheaper wine, spirits and cocktails and lager and occassional bitters for the medicos and scientists. I admit, SE5 is poorly served with real ale pubs barr this one, but there is no institute of engineering, heavy industry etc etc around. Seems like the wrong product for a dipolar rich or young population. (Although down the hill there's a Stalinesque 3 big block council estate). Its a while since I've been though and I hope they do well, but prob need to alter the dynamic from rare but appreciative side burn wearing real alers to something a bit more generally appealing. Ergo women don't give a stuff about real ale (or lager on the whole), no women, means no men, no men means no continued spending. Maybe some live music? The Wurzels?
15 Feb 2009 19:56
The only pub I really want to visit in SE5 for the moment. The landlord is an ever present feature (lesson to owners of pubs with managers on short leas(h)es), who basically makes sure everything gets done as it should be done. Beer good, change correct, enough chat if you want it, not if you don't. Landlord knows a thing or 2 about booze, eg try the absinthe.
And the TV is in a kind of annexed off room. Thank Christ for that. A pub which recognises not everyone is a TV monkey who wants to jabber and caper about in front of the goggle box, but serves though who do wish to mentally park it (and cut a caper).
15 Feb 2009 19:42
Ah the Grove, what a pity. Soulless, but with nice bar staff. Drinks are alright. Place always empty.
Bring back its previous studey incarnation with the great pizza oven, the BRB. They were lovely (and there's no where else in SE5 that does them that I know). It was the only pub in SE5 with a consistently good atmos which a civilised human would want to go to for a fun feeling.
15 Feb 2009 19:36
The George Canning, Denmark Hill
Beer seems OK to me, although I'm not a beeranado.
Problem is the dodgy ventilation. The place always reeks of stale chip fat, everywhere. The girlfriend won't go in now, which is a pity as I have nice memories of the place.
Nice bar staff and mood, clean up the smell though please. Slightly cheaper food and drinks would be nice too
15 Feb 2009 19:28
Hmm, never too sure about the Castle. The beer's always good, staff not too bad. But its the volume of the enormous telly malarchy that gets me out of there quickly.How many pubs need big screen as a perma feature? Maybe all by the look of London.
Don't talk to me about people not holding pub conversations anymore!
15 Feb 2009 19:19
Nice looking pub inside, staff nice too, booze fine. Food looked nice, but a tenner a plate doesn't relate to my �3.50 (1970's) meat and 2 veg or equivalent pub food view. ie isn't necessarily good value. Still I suppse �3.50 then was 2 or 3 beers worth, so maybe a tenner isn't unreasonable. (i get there in the end, sloooooowly...)
15 Feb 2009 19:10
Atnos free, always been emptyish though when I've been in. Beer reasonable though. Cocktails an indifferent afterthought. It sister pub, the Dark Horse in Camberwell was streets ahead of it, but now that's becoming a replica of the soullessness of the this place
15 Feb 2009 19:06
The Bear Free House, Camberwell
Not bad, but not open early. I'm often the first person there. Doesn't fill up v quickly. Staff good. Drinks well served. High staff turnover though which is a pity, as you can't build up a "your usual?" relationship. Never had the food, although it looks nice. Could do with a band in there now and then perhaps.
15 Feb 2009 19:02
I'm afraid its all changed now. I've been coming to this pub since it was the Kerwell. The Dark Horse was a change for the better, up until recerntly. Gone is the decent cocktail list. Gone decent bar food. Gone are any long serving staff. And acvtually that's part of the problem, tucked slightly out the way, with no free parking until after business hours, yummy mummy's join the bar staff for a glass of Pinot Grigio during the day and off and on the pub fills up in the evening. Bar staff come and go, and the quality suffers. The Bramble that used to be made there replaced by a pale shadow, the meat ball bar snack, oxo flavoured cardboard. I'll give it 4 rather the 2 my last experience tell me to, as mayeb they'll pick themselves up again).
Ho hum, maybe Camberwell just hasn't got enough people (or moneyed people) coming to it consistently to support The Bear (nice atmos, but quiet), Dispensary (difficult), B2B (better before as stude pub, failing as a posh nosh pub), Dark Horse, Castle (so so, big screen dominates the noise), Funky Money (dreadlocks and groovey yoof), Hermits Cave (proper calm pub, my fave), Silver Buckle (indifferent), Cadogan (nice apart from stinky chip fat smell all the time), the one above the railway station (character free bar staff, funny tasting beer) and another 2 or 3 towards the hospital.
15 Feb 2009 18:59
The Old Dispensary, Camberwell
Welcomed the reopening and was impressed with the idea of live Irish music, which wasn't too bad. Problem is the food is still the naff fall back of Findus Thai specials and the landlady is something else from the back end of Dublin estate; moody miserable scowler. The place lacks a sound system to support the bands, which means the whole pub has to stop to hear any acts on, which would be OK if the quality was A1, but its not OK just to celebrate sentimentality.
December 2008
15 Feb 2009 18:46
Hate to do this but note Iloverichmond's spelling and grammar, ergo "staff is [are]..a specially [especially the!] polish...It is [a!] very familiar place...spanding [spending] my time there etc etc. As they say in London, for Gawd's sake, why didn't you just admit you're Polish and hence get on with the Polish bar staff. And let's be realistic, Polish bar staff don't give a fig about pleasantries to British customers in general do they.
12 Feb 2009 19:59
The Porterhouse, Covent Garden
Like all theme pubs there's just something about the place I don't like. The lager is sweet and the bitter indifferent, although I didn't have the Porterhouse red. (May pop in for a quick pint en route somewhere else).
Why go there when down the side alley nearby (forgotten the name) the is apprently a real place. You know near the Mongolian restaurant. Come out of the Portherhouse. Turn right. Near teh mongolian, there's a side alley on the right. Down there, I hear there's a hald decen t real pub. One of few in London.
15 May 2006 20:09
The Black Cherry Bar, East Dulwich
This place has changed over the years (not surprising I've been around for c10 years). Anyway now the cocktails a la Gordon Ramsay's advice to chefs have become fewer in variety ("a more focused menu") and very watery. Think of wall paper paste. Just because I add 4x as much water to it, doesn't mean it will hold up 4x as much wall paper. Pity because for variety and strength the place was worth going to before. Now its for volume drinkers, liquid and verbal. At the same time they introduced their Pontins bucket of ice with some pretend cocktail in it about 3 years ago, they introduced a reheated Iceland party food menu. There was an offer at the time, 3 choices for the price of 2 or some such. Having gone for this, 2 out of the 3 things were either under-reheated or so absent on filling as to be not worth eating. Lastly before its Blackpoolisation, because the drinks were stronger, people took their time getting through them. Now with the dilute versions, the till staff are busier with the result service is slower for everyone and more frazzled, exacerbated by the short lengthed bar, where only so many staff can work anyway. I would liken the degradation to that of a spiv buying a minor gentleman's club. Good for the owner's profit, not good for me as I like a serious drink, not kiddo coloured water. One to avoid these days. Green and Blue's just across the road anyway for some decent wine.
19 Feb 2011 10:14