Joseph's reviews
Review of Rough Cut
12 Jul 07, 09:06
Take the short cut 
Despite having a name which veers dangerously towards being a yoof version of the 'Curl Up And Dye' school of hairdressing, essentially Rough Cut is a cheap, friendlier version of Tony and Guy.
I paid about £30 for a mens haircut which I couldnt imagine those GAP advert extras that Tony and Guy employ doing any better.
After the usual triple shampoo/head massage ambiguity you are offered decent coffee and good reading material whilst your locks are shorn. They usually won't ask you if you are up to anything nice tonight, or where you are going on your holidays - but the staff are chatty if you want a good ole' cockney chin wag about how expensive everything is now and how worrying about the War on Terror is giving you split ends.
Save your money and your bus fair - try Rough Cut once and you won't be disappointed.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Bastille
12 Jul 07, 09:21
Ooh La La! Le Gateau in the Chateau 
My french is not existent, and gleaned mostly from watching 'Allo 'Allo and Piorot (who was Belgian) so I will not be using any Gallic colloquealisms to describe this resturant. Suffice to say, in bull dog english, it is bloody marvellous.
Affordable, high quality French cooking done right before your eyes, with lovely smells coming from the open kitchen. I had light crispy Calamari followed by some of the best fish I have ever tasted. Yum. Yum.
Whilst La Bastille's very French use of cream and salt may put off the health conscious - well, good - there will be all the more left for the rest of us.
Affordale high quality food served by lovely bubbly waitresses. What more do you want? Well? Answer me.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Lord Clyde
12 Jul 07, 09:26
Best pub in London. There I said it. 
Nestled in an inaccessible alley off Southwark Street, 'The Clyde' is a hidden gem. A good old fashioned London Boozer, the Clyde's friendly staff serve all the usual booze to a variety of regulars, builders and local office workers. They also serve lovely homemade hot food - I had one of the best BLTs I have ever tasted there, as well as the occasional stew or casserole. The smoking ban seems to be confusing some of the old boys, but with a small outside seating area everyone should be happy.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of Say Pasta
12 Jul 07, 09:31
Load of Bols
I hope that Say Pasta survives - although it is a little too hot to eat in the slightly cramped restaurant, it is a fantastic takeaway option for fans of Italian food. For about a fiver you can get a mountain of succulent Bol sauce on pleasingly unsoggy pasta - if you want pasta, fast, it is either Say Pasta or the inferior oily stuff they do at that Italian place by highbury and Islington Station. Lovely helpful staff and Say Pasta are really trying, but it will need to develop a takeaway/delivery niche and fast if it is to survive.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Borough Bar and Dining
12 Jul 07, 11:13
Borough Bar whining 
First off, in all fairness the staff were lovely, they did keep asking me if everything was ok, and I lied because I am not a complainer - well that is I creep off and do it on the web to avoid confrontation.
I went here to have a nice hang over curing stodge fest - and ordered the bangers and mash. They arrives promptly, but the food was well below par. The sausages were bland and tasteless, the potato was straight out of a local primary school and the gravy was thin, watery and not hot enough.
There were two other problems - they have a timer on the lights in the toilets so I found myself plenged literally into total darkness mid - er - visit, and it took me five minutes to find my way out.
To cap it all off, their chip and pin machine couldn't get any reception, and I was stood there for about fifteen minutes whilst the tried three times to make it work.
Sorry guys, you have a lovely place and a great attitude but the food is not up to scratch.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.
Review of The Boot and Flogger
12 Jul 07, 11:20
A tankard of champagne squire?
I f**king love this place. It is a Vintners, so its grape only, but dont forget that includes the popular white port and tonic and my own guilty pleasure, tankards of champagne.
Tucked away in a side street the Boot is a hidden treasure - The lush old furniture and deep leather chairs call to mind a gentlemans club circa 1880, and the ever helpful and friendly, if slightly eccentric, staff are always on hand to top you up.
The food is also excellent - good solid english fare - steaks as big as your head or wonderful cold meat salads.
Its great value for money and the perfect place to take friends or clients. You might spy an ex Cabinet Minister or famous newspaper columnist, but the main attraction is Peter, the Maitre'D and impressario, who has somehow preserved his peter pan like youthful appearance despite having worked at the boot for about 130 years.
In fact I like it so much I don't want to share it. Lets just forget I ever wrote this review.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of The Alexandra
12 Jul 07, 11:41
Snakebitten
Now lets get this straight - yes, I betrayed South London defecting to Islington some time ago, and yes, the beloved Clapham of my youth is now full of Ultimate frisbee playing Corporate Bankers and Lawyers, but the Alexandra remains an oasis of sanity in a sea of overpriced bars and microwaved nachos.
Its a large, common or garden pub. No gastro pretensions, no poncey embellishments (although there is a large amount of farming equipment fixed to the walls and cieling).
It has ample seating, loads of tellys for watching the football (including one at the bar!) and a brilliant upstairs area (inexplicably decorated with pictures of British Prime Ministers from Campbell Bannerman onwards). In the summer they throw open the screen windows allowing you to feel the cool breeze and hear the honking of Volkswagens on the high street as you sup your Snakebite and Black (yes, they WILL serve snakey b).
The fact that there are two bars means you dont have to wait long for a drink, especially upstairs, and this remains a near perfect place to watch football.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Review of Argos
12 Jul 07, 13:47
Shopping - Eastern Bloc style
Don't go to Argos. Just don't do it.
You walk in, past a chorus of gentlemen of the road drunkenly perched on the benches, stroll up to a laminated dog eared catalogue, (25% of the contents of which will be unavailable) you scribble down your order with a bookies pen on what looks like a lottery ticket, and you go and sit on a row of nondescript NHS chairs whilst the families around you scream and nudge each other.
You can get a lot of what you want cheaply, but you have to wait for it - and why ruin your week by shopping in the closest thing to the Soviet Union the UK has to offer. It's depressing. Just go to Woolies in Chapel Market instead.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Review of The Prince Of Wales
12 Jul 07, 13:57
Load of Boules
Stroll off Kennington Road and the right point and you might be lucky enough to find yourself in Cleaver Square, an up-market Regency style (I think) area with a central tree lined open reservation. This slightly incongruous part of Kennington is home to many of the great and the good in politics and the media, and in the Prince of Wales they have a pretty choice boozer.
Its compact inside, but the church benches and chairs are comfortable enough, and there is amble seating outside. In the summer months the drinkers spill out all over the square like so many thirsty gulls.
The food is ok, but one of the main attractions of the Prince is the offer of a game of Boule. Rent out one of their sets, get yourself a jug of pernod, repair to the gravelled square and toss your boules with gay abandon. Squint and you could be in a small French village.
The Prince also does Asahi and Oranjeboom on tap, which earns it huge brownie points in my book.
1 out of 1 person found this review helpful.
Review of Thai Corner Cafe
12 Jul 07, 14:05
Don't Thai me down
If you are drinking in Highbury (eg the Alwyne with it's awful dry food) and get peckish give Thai Corner Cafe a try - it has a pretty unassuming exterior, but it somehow manages to be roomy and cosy inside at the same time.
The food is good and inexpensive, they have a good selection of wine which is served nice and cold, as well as the usual esoteric lagers.
It's very easy to eat too much so you waddle out like a sated little Buddha, but that is probably a good thing. They also do delivery.
0 out of 0 people found this review helpful.