A few years ago I was kicked in the nuts by a dwarf. It was not an experience I wish to replicate - however lying on the floor of the pub in a small pool of burning testicular agony I realised that I had learnt a very valuable life lesson. Like anyone who has paid the price for assuming that because something is small that means it’s not sociopathically dangerous, I learnt that first impressions can be deceiving.
It seems I didn’t learn this lesson well enough and so it was that last week I got kicked in the nuts by another dwarf. Except in this case the dwarf was the food at the Furzton Lake Hotel and the first impression was that far from being small, they were big, retarded and guaranteed to fuck up my order, my food, my life and pretty much anything else I cared to involve them with. (Can I stretch a metaphor or what?)
As soon as I walked into this place I knew it was going to fuck up. For a start it was huge, vast. It could easily seat a couple of hundred people, It was also busy and the paucity of staff didn’t bode well for any sort of expediency of service. Secondly it was staggeringly cheap. £5 for an 80z steak is a bargain but they were also running a 2 for 1 deal in most dishes - so my steak and my girlfriend’s steak was going to come in at £2.50 a head. I briefly considered that maybe this was a mistake… maybe they were quoting the cost of a drawing of the aforementioned steak… or maybe a brief description in blank verse? It certainly seemed unlikely that they would be selling anything resembling meat for this price. If they were then I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat it.
Regardless of these obvious signals that I was about to indulge in an eating experience on par with medieval dental surgery, I bit the bullet and went up to the bar to order. It was here that my suspicions of the upcoming culinary apocalypse were confirmed. After standing there for about ten minutes one of the gibbering Neanderthals behind the bar finally stopped picking fleas off its fellow chimps back and flopped its drooping eyes over in my direction. For one moment, staring into those deep liquid pools I thought I detected a hint of intelligence, a spark of humanity… but then it was gone. The creature languidly shuffled towards me, knuckles dragging on the floor, and uttered a single guttural question
“Ug?”
Taking this as a prompt for my order I decided to forgo language and instead just pointed to the items and made eating gestures. In response it dumbly thumped a few buttons on the cash register and when this failed to elicit a response, started smashing it up with the leg-bone of a zebra one of its colleagues had been gnawing at. After a few moments, the commotion alerted the Alpha Male, a huge Silverback with hunched shoulders and a head the size of a basketball. After lambasting the younger female he finished smashing the register to bits before waving me away.
By this point I knew that was the last I would hear about my money, order or anything resembling food again.
And then the dwarf kicked me in the nuts.
Against all odds, against all hope, against all rational thought and logic the Furzton Lake Hotel came through. Didn’t just come through but actually exceeded not only my expectations (which were damn low by this point) but forced me to re-evaluate my expectations of pub food from then on.
Seriously, they knocked it out of the park. I order my steak blue. I do this mainly so I can complain about it being over-cooked. My girlfriend ordered hers blue too, usually because she can guarantee it will be medium rare, how she likes it.
My girlfriend couldn’t eat the steak at the Furzton Lake Hotel because it was a genuine blue steak. I mean an actual honest-to-goodness cut-off-a-cow-waved-at-a-radiator-and-shoved-on-the-plate blue steak. Given the experience so far I would be liable to believe this might actually be due to the cook not knowing what a steak was, let alone how to cook it but then they made the same mistake with mine so I can only assume it was deliberate.
Not only that but it was actually a good blue steak. You can’t serve a shit steak blue - the meat is too tough, the taste all wrong - you need a good cut of meat to eat it like this. Usually the blue steaks I have managed to order have been tough and/or tasted of silage. In comparison, this was a pretty fucking amazing steak. Melt in your mouth tender, dark, rich, deep meaty flavour, accompanied by hot crispy golden chips that were freshly cooked in something that may even have been actual sunflower oil.
I was amazed.
Look, here’s the thing. I simply cannot recommend the Furzton Lake Hotel, because I simply cannot believe that this wasn’t a fluke. Everything about the place screams fuck-up. I have absolutely no idea how they did it, and I cannot believe they will ever replicate the situation again. I can only assume that maybe another restaurant took pity on me and sent their food over. There is no way in a billion years my girlfriend and I ate two great steaks for £2.50 a head, served fresh, fast and perfectly cooked by a huge unmanageably large chain hotel run by inbred semi-sentient retards. It didn’t happen. I dreamt it. Feel free to dream it too, but don’t blame me if it turns out to be a nightmare.
One Line Review:
Excellent and incredibly cheap pub grub produced by God-only-knows-what God-only-knows-how.
Friday 10 October 2008
Thursday 2 October 2008
ORTEGA, Central Milton Keynes
Sat under the new apartment complex in the far corner of the Theatre District between Waitrose and TGI’s sits Ortega. It’s dark, grubby looking, gaudily decorated with a kitsch mix of posters depicting flamboyant toreros and adverts for San Miguel and rounded off with the obligatory wicker carafes and a giant papier mache bull head. The only thing lacking for that full authentic Spanish bar is an illuminated tin foil picture of Santa Maria and an ancient foul-smelling snaggle-toothed alcoholic goat herder sitting in the corner eating stale cheese and glaring at you through a haze of cheap cigar smoke… no... wait a sec... there’s one.
In short, this is about as close to an authentic Spanish Tapas Bar as you’re going to get 3,000 miles from Alicante. Actually that’s a lie. Actual Tapas Bars are far grubbier and contain a greater propensity for Formica and plastic deckchairs, but this is the Tapas Bar done the way you’d rather remember it.
It’s Spanish. It’s run by Spaniards. It usually has Spaniards eating in it. Really that’s all you need to know. The food... wine... surly waiting staff... service... all authentic, which might be a bad thing if you don’t enjoy waiting for 40 minutes for a bowl of cold meatballs swimming in oil served by a scowling Catholic - but for my money that’s exactly what I want from a Tapas Bar.
The menu is unpretentious and noteworthy more for what it omits than what it contains. For example you’ll find your olives, anchovies, meatballs, sausages, gambas, calamari (although in this instance they’re actually chiperones), but no sardines, no sepia, no mussels, no pescaditos. This makes sense. Sure, they could probably provide them - like many of the other Tapas Bars I’ve seen spring up around the Midlands - but what’s the point? We’re about as far from the sea as you can get. This is an inland Tapas Bar and it’s acting like one. Good for them.
Having said that, it would have been nice to see a greater variety of inland cookery. Sure there’s chicken and beans and peppers, but how about some rabbit? Or lamb? One of the great things about rustic Spanish cookery is their ability to turn cheap ingredients into staggeringly Moorish (sic) broths and roasts, rich game stews steeped in garlic and grilled peppers swimming in dark smoky paprika and red wine… then again, this is a Tapas Bar, not restaurant. I guess I can forgive them from omitting Thumper from the menu.
That said, what you get is about as close to Spanish Tapas as I’ve tasted outside Spain. And how you feel about that is really dependent on how you feel about Spanish food. Tapas are little more than bar snacks. We eat peanuts and crisps, they eat meatballs and bread. Portions are small, simple, and best enjoyed one at a time over a languid three-hour lunch and a couple of bottles of Rioja. Or four. Sit, talk, eat, drink. If you go in expecting a sit-down meal you will be disappointed. Sure, you can do it like that - I could personally eat a bucket of their calamaris in a sitting - but it’s not what the food's designed for. Sit down. Order a beer. Some anchovies and bread. Eat, chat, drink, let it settle. Still hungry? Order a couple more dishes. It’s Sunday, you’ve got nowhere to be, take your time.
Of course, we’re not good at that. We never have been. The concept that Lunch is an annoyance sandwiched between the football and the afternoon movie is hard wired into our system - a chore to be eaten as quickly as possible, endured and best forgotten as a passing annoyance between beers. This is not what Tapas were designed for. They’re a complement to the company, the wine, and the time shared. They’re something to nibble on while you watch the football over a couple of bottles of San Miguel (which they serve, btw). And Ortega does the best I’ve come across outside Spain.
Plump olives; soft bread; rich porky meatballs in a deep red paprika and tomato sauce; crunchy chiperones served with a wedge of lemon; warm patatas bravas; crunchy roasted little potatoes smothered in tomato; prawns swimming between crispy slices of garlic submerged in a litre of fresh olive oil. I love this stuff and Ortega's the first place in the UK I’ve found that actually gets it right. I could eat it all day, and the good news is that’s exactly what it was designed for.
In Brief:
Expect to pay £5 approx per Tapas. Portions are small by lunch standards but remember these are bar snacks (meatballs consists of three fairly large meatballs and nothing else). Order plenty of bread and aioli (unfortunately not free) and take your time. There is no need to order everything at once. Wash down with the house Rioja (£7) or a few bottles of San Miguel (£2). Don’t order the paella.
One Line Review:
Good Authentic Spanish Tapas served in a good Authentic Spanish Tapas Bar with all the connotations that denotes.
In short, this is about as close to an authentic Spanish Tapas Bar as you’re going to get 3,000 miles from Alicante. Actually that’s a lie. Actual Tapas Bars are far grubbier and contain a greater propensity for Formica and plastic deckchairs, but this is the Tapas Bar done the way you’d rather remember it.
It’s Spanish. It’s run by Spaniards. It usually has Spaniards eating in it. Really that’s all you need to know. The food... wine... surly waiting staff... service... all authentic, which might be a bad thing if you don’t enjoy waiting for 40 minutes for a bowl of cold meatballs swimming in oil served by a scowling Catholic - but for my money that’s exactly what I want from a Tapas Bar.
The menu is unpretentious and noteworthy more for what it omits than what it contains. For example you’ll find your olives, anchovies, meatballs, sausages, gambas, calamari (although in this instance they’re actually chiperones), but no sardines, no sepia, no mussels, no pescaditos. This makes sense. Sure, they could probably provide them - like many of the other Tapas Bars I’ve seen spring up around the Midlands - but what’s the point? We’re about as far from the sea as you can get. This is an inland Tapas Bar and it’s acting like one. Good for them.
Having said that, it would have been nice to see a greater variety of inland cookery. Sure there’s chicken and beans and peppers, but how about some rabbit? Or lamb? One of the great things about rustic Spanish cookery is their ability to turn cheap ingredients into staggeringly Moorish (sic) broths and roasts, rich game stews steeped in garlic and grilled peppers swimming in dark smoky paprika and red wine… then again, this is a Tapas Bar, not restaurant. I guess I can forgive them from omitting Thumper from the menu.
That said, what you get is about as close to Spanish Tapas as I’ve tasted outside Spain. And how you feel about that is really dependent on how you feel about Spanish food. Tapas are little more than bar snacks. We eat peanuts and crisps, they eat meatballs and bread. Portions are small, simple, and best enjoyed one at a time over a languid three-hour lunch and a couple of bottles of Rioja. Or four. Sit, talk, eat, drink. If you go in expecting a sit-down meal you will be disappointed. Sure, you can do it like that - I could personally eat a bucket of their calamaris in a sitting - but it’s not what the food's designed for. Sit down. Order a beer. Some anchovies and bread. Eat, chat, drink, let it settle. Still hungry? Order a couple more dishes. It’s Sunday, you’ve got nowhere to be, take your time.
Of course, we’re not good at that. We never have been. The concept that Lunch is an annoyance sandwiched between the football and the afternoon movie is hard wired into our system - a chore to be eaten as quickly as possible, endured and best forgotten as a passing annoyance between beers. This is not what Tapas were designed for. They’re a complement to the company, the wine, and the time shared. They’re something to nibble on while you watch the football over a couple of bottles of San Miguel (which they serve, btw). And Ortega does the best I’ve come across outside Spain.
Plump olives; soft bread; rich porky meatballs in a deep red paprika and tomato sauce; crunchy chiperones served with a wedge of lemon; warm patatas bravas; crunchy roasted little potatoes smothered in tomato; prawns swimming between crispy slices of garlic submerged in a litre of fresh olive oil. I love this stuff and Ortega's the first place in the UK I’ve found that actually gets it right. I could eat it all day, and the good news is that’s exactly what it was designed for.
In Brief:
Expect to pay £5 approx per Tapas. Portions are small by lunch standards but remember these are bar snacks (meatballs consists of three fairly large meatballs and nothing else). Order plenty of bread and aioli (unfortunately not free) and take your time. There is no need to order everything at once. Wash down with the house Rioja (£7) or a few bottles of San Miguel (£2). Don’t order the paella.
One Line Review:
Good Authentic Spanish Tapas served in a good Authentic Spanish Tapas Bar with all the connotations that denotes.
Monday 9 June 2008
THE MOON UNDER WATER, Central Milton Keynes
It's hard to review The Moon Under Water (Wetherspoons in the Snowdome) because it doesn't serve food.
It doesn't serve beer either. The signs outside assure you that its patrons are able to purchase both in abundance, but this is clearly a lie. Approaching the bar may convince you otherwise, there are tills, customers and an abundance of staff who all seem to be very busy. In fact as this bar seems to have the most staff per square footage of bar of any of the pubs in MK, one would think that this was a perfect set up for anyone wishing to purchase drinks or food.
This is not the case.
By some cruel twist of fate The Moon Under Water only employs bartenders with acute glaucoma. An ocular disability which causes severe tunnel vision. None of the bar staff have a field of vision wider than 5 degrees. This means that if you stand an inch to the left or right of them they can't see you. In fact unless you are standing directly in front of them screaming "Beer!" and smacking them in the face with a £20 note it's quite probable they'll never notice you at all.
I'm all for helping people with disabilities back into the workplace, but the upshot of this bizarre recruitment policy is that no one has been served in The Moon Under Water since 1983. You may see people with pints and food - however these people are obviously overspill from the surrounding clubs and have brought their own drinks with them. I heartily recommend you do the same because you're not getting served at The Moon Under Water.
Luckily for the purposes of this column the staff obviously prepare food and leave it lying around even if they have no idea who it's for: as such I was able to snaffle a couple of dishes and review the place.
The Moon Under Water serves a thick brown paste hastily constructed into various shapes and given names like "curry" and "fruit salad". The amount and consistency of the paste can vary as can its temperature – however, regardless of these differences the paste tastes of beef and onion crisps. Some attempt has been made to garnish the paste with thin slivers of yellow and green plastic hastily strewn over the plate by someone suffering from palsy.
I am unsure where the paste comes from but I'm assuming it's a long way away, because it's definitely not fresh paste and it costs more than the bog-standard paste you might find in a school stock cupboard.
As no one who has ever managed to order the paste it is hard to decide whether it represents value for money.
It's slightly cheaper than food served at other pubs in the area, but then again it's not actually food, and it's not actually served. No one has ever been able to pay for it either so I guess it sits in an interesting metaphysical purgatory: unloved, uneaten and unpaid for but, by virtue of its semi-corporeal existence, not doing anyone any actual harm.
And it really does taste of beef and onion crisps, which might be right up your street if you can’t chew solids and really really like beef and onion.
All this is moot however as you will never successfully order the paste - let alone be served and eat it - which in some ways is probably a blessing. If you must eat at The Moon Under Water I suggest you take your own food. And your own beer.
One Line Review:
Do not try to order beer. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no Beer....
It doesn't serve beer either. The signs outside assure you that its patrons are able to purchase both in abundance, but this is clearly a lie. Approaching the bar may convince you otherwise, there are tills, customers and an abundance of staff who all seem to be very busy. In fact as this bar seems to have the most staff per square footage of bar of any of the pubs in MK, one would think that this was a perfect set up for anyone wishing to purchase drinks or food.
This is not the case.
By some cruel twist of fate The Moon Under Water only employs bartenders with acute glaucoma. An ocular disability which causes severe tunnel vision. None of the bar staff have a field of vision wider than 5 degrees. This means that if you stand an inch to the left or right of them they can't see you. In fact unless you are standing directly in front of them screaming "Beer!" and smacking them in the face with a £20 note it's quite probable they'll never notice you at all.
I'm all for helping people with disabilities back into the workplace, but the upshot of this bizarre recruitment policy is that no one has been served in The Moon Under Water since 1983. You may see people with pints and food - however these people are obviously overspill from the surrounding clubs and have brought their own drinks with them. I heartily recommend you do the same because you're not getting served at The Moon Under Water.
Luckily for the purposes of this column the staff obviously prepare food and leave it lying around even if they have no idea who it's for: as such I was able to snaffle a couple of dishes and review the place.
The Moon Under Water serves a thick brown paste hastily constructed into various shapes and given names like "curry" and "fruit salad". The amount and consistency of the paste can vary as can its temperature – however, regardless of these differences the paste tastes of beef and onion crisps. Some attempt has been made to garnish the paste with thin slivers of yellow and green plastic hastily strewn over the plate by someone suffering from palsy.
I am unsure where the paste comes from but I'm assuming it's a long way away, because it's definitely not fresh paste and it costs more than the bog-standard paste you might find in a school stock cupboard.
As no one who has ever managed to order the paste it is hard to decide whether it represents value for money.
It's slightly cheaper than food served at other pubs in the area, but then again it's not actually food, and it's not actually served. No one has ever been able to pay for it either so I guess it sits in an interesting metaphysical purgatory: unloved, uneaten and unpaid for but, by virtue of its semi-corporeal existence, not doing anyone any actual harm.
And it really does taste of beef and onion crisps, which might be right up your street if you can’t chew solids and really really like beef and onion.
All this is moot however as you will never successfully order the paste - let alone be served and eat it - which in some ways is probably a blessing. If you must eat at The Moon Under Water I suggest you take your own food. And your own beer.
One Line Review:
Do not try to order beer. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. There is no Beer....
Monday 2 June 2008
ELEMENTS, Central Milton Keynes
Since this review was written Elements has closed down. The Masticator has no idea why but suspects some sort of plague outbreak. It has now been replaced by the Red Hot Buffet which apparently offers “the best and most varied food from China, India, Thailand, Mexico, Italy and Japan within beautiful yet contemporary settings, and all for one price.” The Masticator hasn’t eaten there yet but frankly that description fills him with dread. He will be going there soon to let you know if a restaurant specializing in several million different dishes from three continents is a good idea. For the record he asked a friend who had been for his opinion. They stated that “there was more choice than Elements but not as good quality”. Seeing as the choice at Elements was unmanageably vast and the quality slightly worse than the contents of a science fair Petrie dish, one suspects that Red Hot Buffet has simply discovered several new strains of botulism to foist on its unsuspecting customers…
Elements provides the only Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet in the Theatre District, so if you want to stuff yourself with sub-takeaway-standard monosodium glutamate slop then there really isn't any other alternative. Having said that, it's a wide world full of opportunity so why not try grating your face off with a rotary sander or performing your own dental work instead?
This really is a Chinese experience pared down to the bare minimum. The restaurant itself is cheap and grotty looking. Bare metal chairs, long plain wooden tables, every expense has been spared to ensure that you know you're eating out on a budget - which is interesting, because the actual buffet costs around £15 a head without drinks making it more expensive than a main meal at some of the decent restaurants around MK.
The bar where you get your food resembles nothing more than a prison cafeteria. Large metal vats of steaming gloop sit next to each other slowly congealing and imbibing their surrounding dishes with pungent odours and slowly cooking themselves to death so that everything ends up tasting of the same homogenised combination of garlic, salt and black bean sauce. The vats are large enough to ensure that not only can you truly have all you can eat but also that they never need changing which means most of them have probably sat there all day, maybe all week.
It comes as no surprise to me that this place was closed down for health and safety reasons a few years back. I have no idea how they managed to reopen because from what I can tell nothing’s changed. If something did get rid of the rats I can only assume it was the food.
You really are taking your life into your own hands with this place. I couldn't even look at the bright red seafood dish without my stomach booking a reservation at A&E for extensive bowel surgery. If you must eat anything I suggest going for the plain boiled rice and maybe a bit of fruit. Everything else will probably kill you.
There is also a Teppanyaki bar: basically a large hotplate where a chef will cook your selected ingredients right there in front of you along with a bunch of noodles. If you're hoping to avoid botulism this is a pretty good option, the ingredients have been suppurating in their own juices for several days but at least he cooks them for a good fifteen minutes so anything deadly has probably been destroyed by the time you get it. That said, he really does cook it for fifteen minutes, so if there's more than one person in front of you be prepared to wait an hour before you're actually served.
I got my plate about forty minutes after I started queuing. It was bland, tasteless and very greasy. The prawns I selected tasted strongly of boiled eggs. None of us could tell why.
I know some people like all-you-can-eat, but I really can’t recommend this place. Chinese food has a habit of filling you up quickly and making you feel hungry twenty minutes later so I can't see anyone getting their money’s worth unless they literally stay in there all day. And given the way the staff hustle your plate away if you so much as glance in another direction, that scenario seems unlikely and is obviously discouraged.
The fact that you can stuff yourself for a similar price at the infinitely superior Taipan across the street means that I can't really see any reason you might want to eat here unless you hate yourself and want to die.
My Editor assures me that he's had some quite nice meals here. My editor eats nice n’ spicy Nik-Naks and thinks Pot Noodles constitute one of his five a day. You do the math.
One Line Review:
All the fun of a Chinese motorway service station without the arcade machines.
Elements provides the only Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet in the Theatre District, so if you want to stuff yourself with sub-takeaway-standard monosodium glutamate slop then there really isn't any other alternative. Having said that, it's a wide world full of opportunity so why not try grating your face off with a rotary sander or performing your own dental work instead?
This really is a Chinese experience pared down to the bare minimum. The restaurant itself is cheap and grotty looking. Bare metal chairs, long plain wooden tables, every expense has been spared to ensure that you know you're eating out on a budget - which is interesting, because the actual buffet costs around £15 a head without drinks making it more expensive than a main meal at some of the decent restaurants around MK.
The bar where you get your food resembles nothing more than a prison cafeteria. Large metal vats of steaming gloop sit next to each other slowly congealing and imbibing their surrounding dishes with pungent odours and slowly cooking themselves to death so that everything ends up tasting of the same homogenised combination of garlic, salt and black bean sauce. The vats are large enough to ensure that not only can you truly have all you can eat but also that they never need changing which means most of them have probably sat there all day, maybe all week.
It comes as no surprise to me that this place was closed down for health and safety reasons a few years back. I have no idea how they managed to reopen because from what I can tell nothing’s changed. If something did get rid of the rats I can only assume it was the food.
You really are taking your life into your own hands with this place. I couldn't even look at the bright red seafood dish without my stomach booking a reservation at A&E for extensive bowel surgery. If you must eat anything I suggest going for the plain boiled rice and maybe a bit of fruit. Everything else will probably kill you.
There is also a Teppanyaki bar: basically a large hotplate where a chef will cook your selected ingredients right there in front of you along with a bunch of noodles. If you're hoping to avoid botulism this is a pretty good option, the ingredients have been suppurating in their own juices for several days but at least he cooks them for a good fifteen minutes so anything deadly has probably been destroyed by the time you get it. That said, he really does cook it for fifteen minutes, so if there's more than one person in front of you be prepared to wait an hour before you're actually served.
I got my plate about forty minutes after I started queuing. It was bland, tasteless and very greasy. The prawns I selected tasted strongly of boiled eggs. None of us could tell why.
I know some people like all-you-can-eat, but I really can’t recommend this place. Chinese food has a habit of filling you up quickly and making you feel hungry twenty minutes later so I can't see anyone getting their money’s worth unless they literally stay in there all day. And given the way the staff hustle your plate away if you so much as glance in another direction, that scenario seems unlikely and is obviously discouraged.
The fact that you can stuff yourself for a similar price at the infinitely superior Taipan across the street means that I can't really see any reason you might want to eat here unless you hate yourself and want to die.
My Editor assures me that he's had some quite nice meals here. My editor eats nice n’ spicy Nik-Naks and thinks Pot Noodles constitute one of his five a day. You do the math.
One Line Review:
All the fun of a Chinese motorway service station without the arcade machines.
Monday 19 May 2008
THE BARN, Central Milton Keynes
This used to be the place for a nice cheap summer lunch. Sitting outside in the beer garden with a pint and a burger was a summer ritual we all used to look forward to. What the fuck happened?
If I was going to give The Barn the benefit of the doubt I'd say that the menu hasn't changed all that much in the past ten years, but the choice of places to eat around MK and the quality of pub grub at places like The Slug And Lettuce have thrown The Barn's inadequacies into stark relief. But frankly I'd be talking bollocks. The fact is that The Barn has recently been responsible for some of the shittiest food and service I've experienced in years. So fuck the past, here's what you can expect now.
You enter the dingy interior and walk past the clientele who seem to consist of depressed travelling salesmen living in the attached Travelodge behind the pub, their lecherous eyes follow your partner with barely feigned desperation.
You reach the bar and wait for the single bartender to serve the only other person standing there. For some reason regardless of the fact that there are several other members of staff milling around including the hatchet-faced manager, this takes forty minutes.
You finally get your pint and check out the menu. It looks like every other pub grub menu you've ever seen, assuming that you live some time in the 1970's. Pie and chips, chips, peas and chips, burger and chips, chips and burger etc. You look for Spam but realise that would probably be a bit avant-garde.
You decide to have a burger, your partner chooses fish and chips and a Caesar salad. The manager insists on telling you what is in a Caesar salad. You say you don't care, she says lots of people complain when they get it and there aren't any tomatoes, you ask why she doesn't put tomatoes in it then. She looks at you like you're mad because clearly she hates her life and everything in it including tomatoes.
You've been here before, so you walk to the end of the bar and pick up some cutlery and condiments. You understand that under normal circumstances these would be brought to your table with your food but having been stung before by that assumption you remember you are eating in a throwback to a simpler time where such concepts as customer service hadn't been invented.
You pick up your sachets of generic ketchup and vinegar and grab your cutlery. None of it matches, and most of it's dirty but at least it's not plastic. Well, most of it anyway.
Off you go to the beer garden to wait for your food. I don't want to review the garden itself but it's a hit and miss affair. On one hand, the large umbrellas and picnic tables make it one of the few genuinely smoker-friendly pubs in Milton Keynes. On the other hand, the tables only seat six and are bolted to the floor so if your party consists of more than that number you're going to spend the night with your back to at least some of your friends. Also the umbrellas are bolted on and block out 90% of any sun you get so unless they take them down in the summer or you’ve brought a bolt cutter be prepared to sit out there in perpetual shade.
And then you wait. What happens next is down to blind luck. The Barn is synonymous with inconsistency of service. I've had meals there that have arrived freshly cooked and piping hot in a timely manner - I've also had to wait over an hour and remind staff of my order only to have it turn up burnt, cold and not resembling anything I actually asked for. This doesn't seem to be dependent on the time of day or the number of customers. Some days, the place just decides it really doesn't give a shit.
But let's assume that today someone reminded them that they need your patronage to exist and they decide to actually give you your food. The waitress turns up and with a look of mild boredom dumps your plates in front of you.
The fish and chips aren't bad. The fish is about as good as a mid-range deep fried piece of frozen cod gets. The batter's crispy and golden, the fish is tender and white, and the portions are neither offensively gargantuan or stupidly microscopic. It's a perfectly reasonable bit of fish. If you're lucky there might even be a bit of lemon on the plate and someone's clearly tried to make an effort with the small pile of desiccated peas topped off with a sprig of dried up parsley.
The chips aren't hot but they're not cold and whilst not crispy they aren't floppy either, they're perfectly fine reconstituted frozen potato lumps and they're okay.
The salad isn't a Caesar salad but a green salad with pretentions. But as promised there are no tomatoes, so you can't say they didn't warn you. All in all you think it's not a bad £8 plate of food. It's not special in any way whatsoever, but it's not bad. In fact the best way to look at it is that for £8 you're not going to complain. You're not going to actually choose to eat there ever again, but you're not going to throw it at anyone.
The Burger is a different story. It seems that every time I eat at The Barn their burger gets a little bit worse. There was a time when it did a pretty nice one but it seems that years of cost- and corner-cutting have taken their toll until we are left with the cheapest, saddest excuse for a burger currently available in MK. I can in all sincerity say that the burgers served at your local kebab van are infinitely tastier, fresher and healthier than the one you'll get at The Barn.
The Bun is invariably stale. One would think that there must be a magic slot sometime during the day when the buns are fresh, but no. On the bun sits two leaves of lettuce and a slice of tomato that the chef obviously scraped off his shoe having picked them up stomping over someone's allotment on the way to work, three days ago.
And on top of these sits... you know, I have no idea what it is. My aunt had a Great Dane and she used to feed it this really cheap bargain basement dog food. It was minced so finely there was no texture to it - just a dull gray paste that smelt vaguely of liver. I swear if you sliced off a circle of that shit, baked it for a day then left it in a cupboard for a week before microwaving it lukewarm and, shoving a lump of plastic cheese on top, stuck it in a stale bun you'd have The Barn's sorry excuse for a burger. It really is that crap.
Other things to avoid include the steak which is always overdone and tastes vaguely of silage, the Sunday Roast - which as far as I can tell is usually some sort of shoe - and the Beef and Ale Pie which contains neither.
In short, don't eat here unless you absolutely have to - and if that happens, consider other options like faking your own death or charging headlong into a bus.
One line review:
A slightly less pleasant dining experience than your average Bukkake.
If I was going to give The Barn the benefit of the doubt I'd say that the menu hasn't changed all that much in the past ten years, but the choice of places to eat around MK and the quality of pub grub at places like The Slug And Lettuce have thrown The Barn's inadequacies into stark relief. But frankly I'd be talking bollocks. The fact is that The Barn has recently been responsible for some of the shittiest food and service I've experienced in years. So fuck the past, here's what you can expect now.
You enter the dingy interior and walk past the clientele who seem to consist of depressed travelling salesmen living in the attached Travelodge behind the pub, their lecherous eyes follow your partner with barely feigned desperation.
You reach the bar and wait for the single bartender to serve the only other person standing there. For some reason regardless of the fact that there are several other members of staff milling around including the hatchet-faced manager, this takes forty minutes.
You finally get your pint and check out the menu. It looks like every other pub grub menu you've ever seen, assuming that you live some time in the 1970's. Pie and chips, chips, peas and chips, burger and chips, chips and burger etc. You look for Spam but realise that would probably be a bit avant-garde.
You decide to have a burger, your partner chooses fish and chips and a Caesar salad. The manager insists on telling you what is in a Caesar salad. You say you don't care, she says lots of people complain when they get it and there aren't any tomatoes, you ask why she doesn't put tomatoes in it then. She looks at you like you're mad because clearly she hates her life and everything in it including tomatoes.
You've been here before, so you walk to the end of the bar and pick up some cutlery and condiments. You understand that under normal circumstances these would be brought to your table with your food but having been stung before by that assumption you remember you are eating in a throwback to a simpler time where such concepts as customer service hadn't been invented.
You pick up your sachets of generic ketchup and vinegar and grab your cutlery. None of it matches, and most of it's dirty but at least it's not plastic. Well, most of it anyway.
Off you go to the beer garden to wait for your food. I don't want to review the garden itself but it's a hit and miss affair. On one hand, the large umbrellas and picnic tables make it one of the few genuinely smoker-friendly pubs in Milton Keynes. On the other hand, the tables only seat six and are bolted to the floor so if your party consists of more than that number you're going to spend the night with your back to at least some of your friends. Also the umbrellas are bolted on and block out 90% of any sun you get so unless they take them down in the summer or you’ve brought a bolt cutter be prepared to sit out there in perpetual shade.
And then you wait. What happens next is down to blind luck. The Barn is synonymous with inconsistency of service. I've had meals there that have arrived freshly cooked and piping hot in a timely manner - I've also had to wait over an hour and remind staff of my order only to have it turn up burnt, cold and not resembling anything I actually asked for. This doesn't seem to be dependent on the time of day or the number of customers. Some days, the place just decides it really doesn't give a shit.
But let's assume that today someone reminded them that they need your patronage to exist and they decide to actually give you your food. The waitress turns up and with a look of mild boredom dumps your plates in front of you.
The fish and chips aren't bad. The fish is about as good as a mid-range deep fried piece of frozen cod gets. The batter's crispy and golden, the fish is tender and white, and the portions are neither offensively gargantuan or stupidly microscopic. It's a perfectly reasonable bit of fish. If you're lucky there might even be a bit of lemon on the plate and someone's clearly tried to make an effort with the small pile of desiccated peas topped off with a sprig of dried up parsley.
The chips aren't hot but they're not cold and whilst not crispy they aren't floppy either, they're perfectly fine reconstituted frozen potato lumps and they're okay.
The salad isn't a Caesar salad but a green salad with pretentions. But as promised there are no tomatoes, so you can't say they didn't warn you. All in all you think it's not a bad £8 plate of food. It's not special in any way whatsoever, but it's not bad. In fact the best way to look at it is that for £8 you're not going to complain. You're not going to actually choose to eat there ever again, but you're not going to throw it at anyone.
The Burger is a different story. It seems that every time I eat at The Barn their burger gets a little bit worse. There was a time when it did a pretty nice one but it seems that years of cost- and corner-cutting have taken their toll until we are left with the cheapest, saddest excuse for a burger currently available in MK. I can in all sincerity say that the burgers served at your local kebab van are infinitely tastier, fresher and healthier than the one you'll get at The Barn.
The Bun is invariably stale. One would think that there must be a magic slot sometime during the day when the buns are fresh, but no. On the bun sits two leaves of lettuce and a slice of tomato that the chef obviously scraped off his shoe having picked them up stomping over someone's allotment on the way to work, three days ago.
And on top of these sits... you know, I have no idea what it is. My aunt had a Great Dane and she used to feed it this really cheap bargain basement dog food. It was minced so finely there was no texture to it - just a dull gray paste that smelt vaguely of liver. I swear if you sliced off a circle of that shit, baked it for a day then left it in a cupboard for a week before microwaving it lukewarm and, shoving a lump of plastic cheese on top, stuck it in a stale bun you'd have The Barn's sorry excuse for a burger. It really is that crap.
Other things to avoid include the steak which is always overdone and tastes vaguely of silage, the Sunday Roast - which as far as I can tell is usually some sort of shoe - and the Beef and Ale Pie which contains neither.
In short, don't eat here unless you absolutely have to - and if that happens, consider other options like faking your own death or charging headlong into a bus.
One line review:
A slightly less pleasant dining experience than your average Bukkake.
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