The Nelson Hotel, Littlehampton

Friendly welcome, good food, clean and snug, a little gem. And easily the nicest owners and staff I have met in any pub, anywhere, for a long, long time. Thankyou.

22 Oct 2011 22:30

The Half Moon Inn, Shaftesbury

If you want to visit a pub, don't come here. It isn't one.

It looks like a pub from the outside. However, once you get in, as other posters have commented, the truth is out: its a restaurant! A restaurant that has a bar.

The food is standard pub fare, but the choice on the menu is plentiful, and, having experience the food (0/10) and the bar (0/10) at the "Royal Chase" Hotel over the road (my God-the "Half Moon" must get so many customers from that place, and, compared to their efforts at food and drink, this particular pub, sorry, restaurant with a bar, is Nirvana!), happily supped and ate here for a couple of nights, and it would have been more.

Yes, the decor is a stark and clinical effort to reproduce "olde world"-lots of wood and attempts at atmosphere; those little touches-'oh so amusing' lines of prose on the wall and the like-wooden planks from Homebase made to look like 18C beams, that sort of thing-but it is clean, light, airy, there is plenty of room, and the staff-and however many of them are there, we were served by 5 different people each evening!-are friendly, albeit in that unconvincing manner that comes so easily from Aussies and their Southern Ocean ilk.

I like how they offer smaller servings on some of the meals, so many pubs and restaurants-with-a-bar pack your plate with food piled so high, it has its own gravitational pull, and, even after an hours solid chomping, you seem to have more than you started with-despite this, when the staff come round and ask "everything alright?", you always say, "yes, lovely thankyou" instead of asking them how they have broken the laws of physics by serving organic matter that self repletes itself, however...

...the food is hot, hearty and tasty and the range of beers modest,-but they are there.

One bad, bad mark for the brewery-the bills states, proudly, that "all tips go to our staff", when, infact, they do not-we were told that sums added electronically as a tip is hoovered up by the chain and the staff never see a penny. Not nice and a lie to their customers.

If this place could rediscover a little pub-type energy over the coming months, it would be quite a find. As it is, I suspect the good folk of Shaftesbury will sup elsewhere and leave the "Half Moon" for us folk that '...bain't from round 'ere, is thee?..", which is a shame. But its OK, and, if you are in need of an early evening feast, or do not wish to face the Monkfish at the "Royal Chase", then pop in...

3 Jul 2010 22:28

Royal Oak, Winchester

Yep, another "oldest bar in England" -how many are there? Claims of that honour thus far in Nottingham, Norwich, York...and now Winchester! Astonishing, did Queen Elizabeth I sleep here as well, I wonder?

Typical "oldest bar in England" appearance-all (fake) beams, low (fake) ceilings and dark (fake) wooden panels. But lots of cramped, sorry, cosy, places to sit and enjoy your ale and food, latter is standard and adequate.

Laughable nonsense on the menus, there to wow the tourists no doubt-goes on about how "Bonnie Prince Charlie" hid in the afore mentioned oak tree to escape his would be captors-well, only about 100 years out there guys, and about 400 miles too far south-it was, of course, King Charles II, but hey, who needs accuracy when there are tourists to impress? This tale led to hundreds of pubs throughout England having this name, most of them claiming to be near the spot where it happened. This one wasn't.

Service is OK, atmosphere lively, but hardly a local voice to be heard. Bland and visitor centric.

15 May 2010 21:54