I apologize in advance to those of you across the pond that I’m about to offend, but it’s the truth and you know it.
Your food sucks.
Last weekend I went to a British pub in Santa Monica and was originally only there for a drink and the playoffs (okay, so this was two weekends ago) but we decided to stay there and have lunch instead of venturing somewhere else. I personally was against the idea but was convinced by a friend of mine that the cornish pasties were an experience all their own and that it would at least be worth trying.
So we got a table and I started to scope out the menu. Brum fish cakes – no. Beans on toast – no. Peas – no. Bangers and mash – maybe.
I decided on a veggie burger, which you’d think might have been my mistake, but it turned out that what I ordered made no difference. It came with fries (err, “chips”) – the real reason I ordered it – and after one glance I went for the salt shaker. “You haven’t even tried them yet,” my friend said to me even though he knows I’m a french fry connoisseur and I know my stuff better than anyone. I told him to taste one and after he realized I was right, he went back to his pastie and I called checkmate.
It feels so good to be right.
I killed about half of the salt shaker on my fries, most of the ketchup bottle on my veggie burger and wondered how in the hell anyone could enjoy this food as-is. I tried my friend’s pastie, which was nothing but a completely botched empanada and as for his peas, I don’t even need to go there. Calling them tasteless would be the understatement of a lifetime – like saying our economy is just in a pinch. Or that Blagojevich was just kidding. Or that Anderson Cooper is only slightly attractive. Or that I’m only kind of funny.
The only thing that was partially salvageable without the addition of a table’s worth of condiments was the sausage roll – basically a sausage link the size of a hot dog wrapped inside puff pastry with two little ends sticking out. Anything that remotely resembles pigs in a blanket is okay by me so when the waitress brought them to the table I was relieved and thought I might not actually starve that day.
It’s a shame too, because judging by the menu you’d think that some of it would be pretty tasty. Wrong. Bland, boring, big fat snore. There was a point I thought I might actually fall asleep at the table but luckily I had a handsome face to look at and that kept me perked, despite the completely uninspiring food.
Maybe I’m judging too quickly and should shut my mouth and try real British food and not just Southern California’s rough translation. If I’m right though, the translation would look something like this:
Delicious menu with lots of great descriptive words MINUS all of the flavoring MINUS any color MINUS any fun EQUALS traditional British fare.
Our waitress came by one last time with the check and said, “dessert for either of you?”
YEAH, NO THANKS. I’m not falling for that one again.
