The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[ian]

Look it up. The Angel in Stoke-by-Nayland.

Alright, it *is* fine dining then.

Well, I'm waiting for an experienced opinion on that! It's unlikely to be mine...

Well, it's above-average for London (mains at St Johns and similar are around £25) so I don't fault their ambition, but it would have to be very good. You can certainly eat very well in London for less.

I drink posh beer, hence the prices, I'm sure you can get Fosters for £2.90 pint, but you can also eat sharps out of the bin at the back of a hospital for free, so bargains aren't always good. Posh beers is often served in thirds or halves, so it's not like you're knocking back pints, so I think of the pricing as more akin to wine.

My wife is fine appraiser of lime and soda pricing and gets really, really angry if it costs more than £2 for a pint. She has a list of pubs which I think, eventually, one dark fateful night she'll head out into the countryside like a vengeful angel to burn down.

[Rod Marton]

Look it up. The Angel in Stoke-by-Nayland.

Alright, it *is* fine dining then.

Well, I'm waiting for an experienced opinion on that! It's unlikely to be mine...

Well, it's above-average for London (mains at St Johns and similar are around £25) so I don't fault their ambition, but it would have to be very good. You can certainly eat very well in London for less.

I drink posh beer, hence the prices, I'm sure you can get Fosters for £2.90 pint, but you can also eat sharps out of the bin at the back of a hospital for free, so bargains aren't always good. Posh beers is often served in thirds or halves, so it's not like you're knocking back pints, so I think of the pricing as more akin to wine.

My wife is fine appraiser of lime and soda pricing and gets really, really angry if it costs more than £2 for a pint. She has a list of pubs which I think, eventually, one dark fateful night she'll head out into the countryside like a vengeful angel to burn down.

The Angel was the first ever pub I drank in. It would have been less than £1 a pint then. Times change.

[TimC]

The Angel was the first ever pub I drank in. It would have been less than £1 a pint then. Times change.

Yes, I've drunk there many times in the past 50 years, and in the Crown opposite and the now-long-gone Black Horse. I'm unlikely to visit it again!

[Hot Flatus]

The last time I paid a high price for a meal and thought it was worth it was last week. A seafood tagine at Le Jardin in Marrakesh. Fucking incredible. €15. That's a day's wages for a labourer here.

Prior to that, in UK, can't remember. Probably because I rarely eat out other than at local ethnic places that I know to be good. Done all the wanky places, Le Manoir etc during the courting years, pre-kids. Don't miss it a bit. A £25 main which is invariably pan-fried fillet of something with a dribble of someone's  jus, on a bed of gay hair.  Over in 4 minutes. Can do that shit at home.

Eating at Al Fassia tomorrow night. Tagine de poison, because I'm a pesccie and everything else will be made of this....



Over here a 'headshop' is a little different to the ones you might find in Amsterdam.

[orienteer]

For your sake, I hope there's another s in the dish...

[rafletcher]

Bloody mobile data. At work I sit within 50m of a mast (shared by Vodafone and BT that I know of). Usually I get the full 4 bars and decent 4G.  For the last week it's been 2 bars, virtually no data, and downstairs only 3G.  But there's never anywhere to actually communicate the problem, just "solutions" if you have problems with mobilke data grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Tim Hall]

A £25 main which is invariably pan-fried fillet of something with a dribble of someone's  jus, on a bed of gay hair.  Over in 4 minutes. Can do that shit at home.

Jay Rayner, is that you?

[Mr Larrington]

Bloody mobile data. At work I sit within 50m of a mast (shared by Vodafone and BT that I know of). Usually I get the full 4 bars and decent 4G.  For the last week it's been 2 bars, virtually no data, and downstairs only 3G.  But there's never anywhere to actually communicate the problem, just "solutions" if you have problems with mobilke data grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The power's being siphoned off for these:


Makes sense... by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

[TheLurker]

Pub Identification Questionnaire

   Do you serve food?
   a) No
   b) Yes.  Plain, Cheese & Onion or Salt & Vinegar
   b) Certainly {sir/madam/preferred honorific}. Would you like to see our extensive menu?

a) & b) - Pub
c)        -  Not Pub.

HTH.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Nah. Pub lunch is an ancient and worthy thing. Ploughman's, shepherd's pie, ect, ect. Other agricultural workers of bygone times might be available.

[matthew]

Beaten by Cudzo, I was going to suggest answer d) please see the blackboard by the fire: ploughmans, simple sandwiches, soup of the day, jacket pottato with simple toppings, pint of pawns, fish and cips, sheepherds pie, burger, steak and ale pie etc. e.g. simple comfort food and fuel for the touring cyclist. Sundays it may include the roast of the day.

answer d) would still qualify as a pub as you sit in the bar and no you haven't got to book a table in advance.

[Mr Larrington]

v) No. This is a branch of Specsavers.  Aren’t you glad you came!

[ian]

Modern life being rubbish innit, now you have to book a table in the pub, but queue for a table in a restaurant.

I've no idea who 'Sophie 6.30pm' is, but she's got a lot to answer for, on any given evening she seems to have booked a table in 34% of all London pubs.

[Beardy]

Sophie you say? THAT LONDON, you say?

That’ll be my daughter-in-law. And yes, she does have a lot to answer for. In fact she NEVER bloody shuts up. 

[Basil]

I miss the plastic tray covered in cling film that would contain ham and tomato rolls and cheese and onion rolls.
Couple of beers, couple of rolls. Lovely.   That's everything I wanted.

[ian]

Owing to a mishap the other week, I booked the wrong pub for Sunday lunch, and the place I booked only had crisps. And no cheese and onion. We generally don't have people book, explained the landlady, as we stood at the bar.

A pint of lime and soda was only 60p though. That, apparently, didn't make up for the booking mishap.

[Kim]

I miss the plastic tray covered in cling film that would contain ham and tomato rolls and cheese and onion rolls.
Couple of beers, couple of rolls. Lovely.   That's everything I wanted.

The Coach and Horses is that way.
<--

[TimC]

Pub Identification Questionnaire

   Do you serve food?
   a) No
   b) Yes.  Plain, Cheese & Onion or Salt & Vinegar
   b) Certainly {sir/madam/preferred honorific}. Would you like to see our extensive menu?

a) & b) - Pub
c)        -  Not Pub.

HTH.

(c) isn't one of the available answers!

[Basil]

I miss the plastic tray covered in cling film that would contain ham and tomato rolls and cheese and onion rolls.
Couple of beers, couple of rolls. Lovely.   That's everything I wanted.

The Coach and Horses is that way.
<--

Wow, they still do that?   It was there that I was thinking of.

[TheLurker]

(c) isn't one of the available answers!

I know.  I couldn't be arsed to go back and correct it. 

[robgul]

I miss the plastic tray covered in cling film that would contain ham and tomato rolls and cheese and onion rolls.
Couple of beers, couple of rolls. Lovely.   That's everything I wanted.

The Coach and Horses is that way.
<--

Wow, they still do that?   It was there that I was thinking of.

I assume you're referring to the Coach at Weatheroak? - and yes they still do!

[Tim Hall]

Sophie you say? THAT LONDON, you say?

That’ll be my daughter-in-law. And yes, she does have a lot to answer for. In fact she NEVER bloody shuts up. 

It might be my sister Sophie. She lives in That London and has (or had) a loyalty card for her favourite Thee Pubbe.

[Kim]

I miss the plastic tray covered in cling film that would contain ham and tomato rolls and cheese and onion rolls.
Couple of beers, couple of rolls. Lovely.   That's everything I wanted.

The Coach and Horses is that way.
<--

Wow, they still do that?   It was there that I was thinking of.

I assume you're referring to the Coach at Weatheroak? - and yes they still do!

That's the one (cunningly positioned at the bottom of a bastard hill to trap cyclists), though I haven't been inside since The Event.

[hellymedic]

I have just booked train tickets for a forthcoming trip from CrossCountry.
(I couldn't get tickets via GWR to work and failed to log into Transport for Wales).
I want orange cardboard ; I don't have a suitable phone and wouldn't want to faff with one at a gate line if I did.
They now charge an extra £1 to collect tickets from a machine and £1.20 for 2nd class post.
Post suits me fine but £1 to collect tickets from a machine rankles!

Tickets arrived today, which is pretty impressive for 2nd class post, the day after a LONG Bank Holiday weekend.

Now just have to hope our 5 minute connection time at Swansea, both ways, works OK…

(We're on the Heart of Wales line and our ticket would not be valid on an earlier outward GWR train. This is not a problem on the return leg.)

[Tim Hall]

Trip Advisor/Facebook reviews are a fairly powerful weapon against public house bureaucracy. None of them like to have it revealed that their Service Is Crap and their welcome is no such thing.

Yup. Already tripadvisored them. and razed the pub to the ground and sowed the land with salt

Now there's interesting. Their TripAdvisor page yesterday had as the two most recent reviews ones from me and another member of our party. Today only mine is there. This is because they've created a new page (The Farmers Boy Pub and Restaurant) and moved some of the reviews there, including the one from our party. They replied to that one blaiming it on Covid related short staffing and a consequential "book only" policy. Nio mention of such a made up policy on their website.  Sneaky blighters.