FANCY eating out? Yearning for a stodgy feast? Avoid these ‘pub classics’ which no pub is capable of making:
Fish and chips
How can anyone f**k this up? You take the fish, you take the chips, you dunk them into a fryer for a bit then chuck them on a plate and charge people £15. It’s foolproof. And yet pub chefs insist on adding extra steps where they leave the food to go cold and add a stale lemon slice on the side. Just go to a chippy next time.
Hunter’s chicken
This was always doomed to fail. Any dish that’s part of French cuisine was never going to carry over successfully to a pub menu. Instead of beautifully tender chicken wrapped in nice crispy bacon, you’ll be slung a stringy hunk of burnt meat that will give you food poisoning by odour alone. You’ll eat every bite though because you’re in a rough pub and don’t want to look ungrateful.
Curry
British people are not as attuned to good curry as they think they are. The most exciting spice they can handle is salt and they insist on diluting this extreme taste sensation with mountains of rice and stacks of poppadoms. It’s hardly the pub’s fault for butchering this fine cuisine, they’re just giving the dumb f**kers what they want. Although why they add peas, nobody knows.
Burger and chips
McDonald’s can churn this meal out without thinking about it, yet pubs work long and hard to bollocks it up. And not just the staple ingredients either. The salad will be tasteless, the buns will be stale, and the burger will be too big to fit into your mouth without unhinging your jaw. Worst of all, it’s served on a block of wood with a side-basket of chips.
Steak-and-ale pie
A traditional British meal which even has alcohol in it, surely a pub can’t f**k this? Guess again. It’ll be one of those disappointing fake pies which is a steep-sided dish with a pastry lid stretched over the top, and inside it’ll be more air than ale. A couple of packets of Scampi Fries would be more satisfying.
Anything vegan
Typically just vegetable substitutions of meaty meals that pubs couldn’t get right in the first place. Expect to be served burnt Linda McCartney briquettes optimistically referred to as ‘sausages’ and slabs of fried halloumi which completely miss the point. You’re too polite to return it though, so you’ll politely choke down your lack of morals with a smile.
