Sunday, April 01, 2007

Beer on the Last Day

Last day in Barnet. Borrowing a friend's little car (a tiny little automatic Geo Metro complete with a choke) Mary, Molly and I drove around Hertfordshire doing a little pub hopping. We vaguely knew of a country pub we wanted to try, but not knowing where it was we just pointed the car North and resolved to see what we could find.

First stop was the Candlestick, which we ran into by accident outside of Essendon. It was a nice little building, but mostly empty, and the barman looked like he'd had a rough Saturday night. We were able to take our drinks--I had a pint of McMullen's AK Bitter--out into a garden where we could enjoy the rare sunshine.

From there, we noticed a sign pointing the way towards Wildhill, where the phantom pub was supposedly located. Sure enough, we ran straight into the Woodman. Unfortunately, it was closed during the afternoon, so we had to forge on ahead to the Five Horseshoes. I started out here with a Courage Directors Bitter. Growing hungry, we sat down and all three of us had beef and ale pies, washed down for me with Old Speckled Hen. The beer was good, but the pie was literally the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. But then Mary had to go and order a Corona, which completely destroyed the ambience of the photo above.

Tomorrow, Los Angeles bound!

4 comments:

MMR said...

LITERALLY THE MOST DELICIOUS THING YOU HAVE EVER TASTED!!!!!!! How often can we say such a thing? I salute you.

sushipjs said...

Speaking of Corona in England, have you ever been brave enough to try the Mexican restaurants there? Scary stuff, my friend!

Anonymous said...

I have to defend myself and say that because I am not as crazy about beer as the author, I often resort to what the pub has in bottles which is exceptionally limited in a country which loves beers on draught. I choose bottled beer because pints are just simply bigger than I can handle before it gets all warm and undrinkable. For these reasons my love affair with the all be it trendy but dependable corona developed, but I do realize that this short coming has made all of you unable to fully appreciate the fabulousness of this pub and for that I am truly sorry! :)

PMG said...

The only thing worse than British Mexican food is French Mexican food--I once mistakenly ate at a "Tex Mex" establishment in Paris. Oy vey. I've always said that a surefire way to make some money would be to open up a Baja Fresh franchise in London.