Pub Food

[trayhop123]

yeah but they are a con designed to catch out foreign tourists ,,,,,they used to have a specials board,,,outside offering steak meals for a tenner, you order your meal , but when your finished they hit you with absurd small print charges ,,,,,,, like your chips n veg are separate , gratuity/hidden service charges ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, the water on the table you thought was free , isnt etc ,,,,,,,,,,,,, honestly ,,,,,,,,, the steak is nice but you end up paying more than you bargained for


this was a few years back mind , ,,,,,, when walking past lately they dont seem to have the specials boards outside anymore , maybe they changed the system , maybe they got sick of complaints ,,,,,,,,, dunno not been back since i felt conned

as i said the restaurant exactly next door to the empire cinema is great , you get what you pay for , a steak meal for around 17-28 quid ,,,,,,,,,,,, ok its hardly spoons prices but its very nice ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and im sure you could pay a lot more somewhere else

[Roll_With_It_Russ]

Sirloin, ribeye, even a good quality rumps can all be very tasty... if you like the tendeness of fillet then there is nowt wrong with that, specially if you like powerful sauce, cream and pink peppercorn is the sort of think I like. I cooked a piece of fillet the other week in a griddle pan at home and to be honest I found it rather bland, nothing wrong with it apart from it lacked intense meaty flavour.

Black and blue is one of the better small chain steak houses in the city. looking about £30

If you want to go more upmarket Gaucho is quite good. Get a steak dish that has several cuts but that cost over £60 last time I had it, easy to get to £100 a head.

Quite a few places where you can get a kobe steak, but prices start at about £80, just for the bit of meat, not had one myself friends say its worth trying once.

But generally every eatery you can get some sort of steak and i've found some really nice back street places that for 2 came in at less than £70 including drinks.

Tourist areas = tourist prices = generally poorer quality.

Where as here in good ole norfolk, nice steak meal with starters and even a dessert can come in at around £50 if you just a one drink person like me at times. London is ok now and again, but its really for londoners(the ones that have money) and tourists.

[Roll_With_It_Russ]

Anyone tried those steakhouses(I think that's what they're called) all over London?

there is loads of chains, aberdeen angus ones are a crock of shit imo, they used to be in the touristy areas not sure how many still exist, but used to be owned by the same group that owns loads of arcades, think they went bust or something did go in one near 10 years ago its not a place that londoners would entertain I don't think.

[Northern Monkey]

The Aberdeen/ Angus steakhouses are owned by the Nobles. There was something in the paper on it recently.

[Spyder]

You all realise that the food in 95% of places is exactly the same as wetherspoons? The meat from most places is imported crap, chicken is usually salted and imported from thailand to avoid slaughter costs and import taxes... They all use frozen/defrosted microwave meals,

The odd few pubs will make food fresh, but then either chill or freeze it and serve it to order...

The lamb shanks you mention are heat-treated and vacuum packed and then dont even need to be kept in the fridge... They have a 12 month ambient shelf life...

wetherspoons burgers are reasonably full of meat... You could get worse ones....
The lips eyelids and arseholes myth is so blown out of proportion these days... The meat in some burgers is better than the meat in some steak!

[bowie]

Go for the fish and chips in a Spoons, don't know about down south but up here they get the haddock in fresh daily.

[Spyder]

fillet is difficult to cook at home, it will never match the flavour of a restaurant, only buy fillet from a proper butchers, if you use a frying pan, put a couple of crushed mushrooms, olive oil and a piece of fat from either lamb or beef in the pan and fry that first on a low heat for a few minutes to add to the meat...

Fillet is nice but didn't have the fat content of most other steak,

If you are into that kind of thing, add a clove of garlic and a sprinkle of fine ground black pepper... If you use salt, add it after the cooking as it is very easy to accidentally dry out the steak with too much salt in cooking...

[Spyder]

Go for the fish and chips in a Spoons, don't know about down south but up here they get the haddock in fresh daily.

that's doubtful... Spoons dont have the option of a daily delivery... Its more than likely delivered frozen, defrosted for each day and battered in a premade packeted batter mix.

[Scott]

You seem to know a lot about it Spyder, you a chef?

[Spyder]

You seem to know a lot about it Spyder, you a chef?

inbetween spying on you guys from the kitchen doorway... Yeah!

More on the management side of things now though

[bowie]

that's doubtful... Spoons dont have the option of a daily delivery... Its more than likely delivered frozen, defrosted for each day and battered in a premade packeted batter mix.

I thought exactly the same and was surprised when I found out too, I looked at the delivery drivers sheets for the seafood supplier at my place and it had the names of the local spoons on it and he confirmed it, can only imagine the price they're getting the haddock in for.

[Spyder]

That's odd, I just spoke to the regional catering manager for the midlands and they hadn't heard of it, it is entirely possible that its a local thing, if they are near a distribution centre for fish, but pretty much everything spoons use for the food side of things is delivered internally, they own their own distribution network, and they get deliveries every other day.

they must be selling a decent amount of fish to be able to shift daily deliveries.. id say they use a 8-10 oz fillet, they come in boxes of about 30 probably about 70p each...

[Roll_With_It_Russ]

You all realise that the food in 95% of places is exactly the same as wetherspoons? The meat from most places is imported crap, chicken is usually salted and imported from thailand to avoid slaughter costs and import taxes... They all use frozen/defrosted microwave meals,

The odd few pubs will make food fresh, but then either chill or freeze it and serve it to order...

The lamb shanks you mention are heat-treated and vacuum packed and then dont even need to be kept in the fridge... They have a 12 month ambient shelf life...

I dunno the sort of places you eat, but yeah if you go in many pubs, you know what your getting and the food is priced accordingly.

If I go into a place to eat, the food is not up to the standard they are asking to pay, I fucking well tell them(well that is if I am the one paying)... it does have to be done in a certain way so not to seem like a total cock, though I have said to peoples faces for "your food is total fucking shit" when they are so thick they can't understand the complaint. On the whole though i'm very selective and less than 1 in 10 time do I have issues.

The sort of place that charge 8 quid startes, 15 quid mains and 7 quid dessert and drinks no less than £4 each, all just because the place up the road does, will never wash with me.
I went out to a village pub the other evening, I had a pint of local brew, was something silly like £2 and pence, ham egg and chips £5.95... perfectly goof meal and to by the same quality ham, eggs and make the chips my self at home would of come in at much the same price, the ham part would be at least £2.50-3 for equivalent quality out of the butchers/supermarket.

[Roll_With_It_Russ]

When it comes to imported products, prepared frozen stuff, yes lots of it is, however there are many different grades.

Common one is frozen fish, can but "white fish" cheap, "cod" is far more expensive... which is why "fish and chips" could be 7.95, different place using the same supplier but buys in "cod" and sells "cod and chips" that on the menu as 9.95

Local chip shop got done passing off "white fish" as "Cod", people are led to believe they are buying something they are not when it comes to lots of food products.

Majority of the public have not got a clue so it goes unnoticed.

Another example you see in the local kebab shops, they all do burgers but the grades are so different, some are pink with white flecks, having quite a high proportion of meat content, in the slighter cheaper takeaway the burgers are like a light brown almost grey slim consistancy, taste completely horrid to me.

[Captain.Tattybojangles]

Usual "White fish" isn't that normally Pollock?

Oh and fave steak=Ribeye, rump or sirloin, rare. Latter can be cooked blue rare too.