Randomness Guide to London

Hello, welcome back after a brief hiatus. It is that time of year for the Good Beer Guide updates! (Non-GBG-related changes will be in next week's update.)



Our featured article is therefore Category Good Beer Guide 2017. Here is a link to the CAMRA website if you want to see what it looks like and/or buy a copy.

There are many new entries to our database:
* The Beehive in Tottenham (a very nice pub I should have added years ago);
* Brewhouse and Kitchen by Angel station;
* The Broken Drum in Blackfen near Sidcup;
* The Four Thieves, a former Antic pub in Battersea;
* The Hare and Hounds in Greenford;
* J.J. Moon's, a Spoons in Kingsbury;
* The King's Arms, another lovely pub I should have added years ago (it's in Bethnal Green);
* The King and Co. in Clapham;
* The King's Stores in Spitalfields near Liverpool Street;
* The Long Pond in Eltham (see main image above);
* The Penny Farthing in Crayford;
* The People's Park Tavern in South Hackney (a large place);
* The Phoenix in the City of London (Throgmorton Street if you must know);
* The Railway Arms in Oxhey (hey! I hear you say, is that even in London? well no, but it's by Zone 8 Bushey station);
* The Rifleman in Epsom;
* The Shaftesbury Tavern in Upper Holloway;
* The Ship in Gidea Park;
* The Upminster Taproom;
* The Wibbas Down Inn, a Spoons in Wimbledon;
* The Woolwich Equitable.

There's also a stub entry for The Radius Arms in Whyteleafe, which wasn't visited in time to get a full write-up.

A noteable re-entry is the lovely Chesham Arms, which was under threat a few years back, but has reopened and is lovely.

Finally, one that actually entered the GBG last year, but we missed it: The Woodman in Woodmansterne.

Pubs pubs pubs pubs. Go to a pub?

Hello again!

This week's featured article is Beck's Cafe, WC1R 4PS, a greasy spoon cafe offering excellent quality breakfast in the Holborn area. bob's been a regular nigh on twenty a year now. In my own opinion, sausages are the key, good quality sausages, can't overemphasise how important these are.

Two new entries include Bongo East, a Ghanaian restaurant/bar in Barking. It offers some tasty fufu. I'm still not sure what that is. Some kind of bread?

Another addition is Albina, another bar/restaurant this time in Plaistow. It offers food from the Ukraine, and is probably a good deal safer to visit than that country is right now (/topical). I would suggest reading our review carefully before you go in, because there's some good stuff if you choose well. Bonus Cyrillic action.

Finally two reported closures are Viajante, whose award-winning chef Nuno Mendes has gone on to other projects (he's currently cooking at the Chiltern Firehouse, which your updater is confident he will not be eating at, what with it being London's current hot ticket). At the other end of the gastronomic spectrum, the E5 Cafe in everyone's favourite postcode has also shut up shop, not long after advertising non-existent Punjabi food, which may perhaps have confused their potential customers and been something of, dare I say it, a marketing error.

This week is that week when the Good Beer Guide is released, so we can add all the new Good Beer Guide 2014 pubs, which Kake and bob have been diligently adding, helped by a few others. I shan't try to sum up the views of our sterling reviewers (you should read the entries to find out their favourites), so here is a list of those with new entries in RGL as a result:

In the centre:
* The Chamberlain (Aldgate EC3);
* The Exmouth Arms (Clerkenwell EC1);
* The Hung, Drawn and Quartered (Tower Hill EC3);
* The Sun (Covent Garden WC2); and
* The White Swan (Covent Garden WC2).

In the North:
* The Bohemia (North Finchley N12) [PS already closed! BOO!];
* The Bull (Highgate N6);
* The Charlotte Despard (Archway N19); and
* The Stag and Hounds (Lower Edmonton N9).

In the East:
* The Bell (Walthamstow E17)
* The Duke's Head (Walthamstow E17); and
* The Sebright Arms (Haggerston E2).

In the South-East:
* The Royal Standard (Blackheath SE3);
* The Ship (Borough SE1); and
* The Star Inn (Plumstead SE18).

In the South-West:
* The King's Head (Earl's Court SW5); and
* Powder Keg Diplomacy (Battersea SW11).

In outer London postcodes:
* The Barking Dog (Barking IG11);
* The Europa (East Molesey KT8);
* The Feathers (Rickmansworth WD3);
* The George Staples (Sidcup DA15);
* The Jolly Coopers (Hampton TW12);
* The London Apprentice (Isleworth TW7);
* The Moon on the Hill (Sutton SM1)
* The Tailor's Chalk (Sidcup DA14);
* The Three Tuns (Uxbridge UB8);
* The Windermere (North Wembley HA9); and
* The Woodman (Farnborough BR6).

There's also a stub article for The Viaduct in Hanwell, so if anyone would like to visit and let us know how it is, why not do that? We'll get along eventually, I'm sure.

One other pub addition, not in the GBG, is The Change of Horses in Farnborough, which is upmarket traditional. If you're going to go all the way to Farnborough you might as well try a couple of pubs, eh?

Reported closures, are, er, the Bohemia (see above). It was a nice pub, I hope it will be back... :(

There are significant updates to the entries for The Red Lion in Isleworth, The Portrait in Sidcup, and Ye Olde Whyte Lyon in Farnborough.

There is a temporary closure for The Pilot Inn, a wonderful and lonely pub in North Greenwich. Meanwhile, The Gate vegetarian restaurant in Hammersmith has reopened.

Hello! Unusually this week the featured article is not a place but a category: the Good Beer Guide 2013. Every year on the release of this guide, Kake uploads the 2013 pub information, and as a result a number of new pages are created in RGL (which she and other contributors try to visit before the publication date).

It's worth pointing out that the new articles that have been added as a result do not represent all the new 2013 GBG pubs, just the ones which didn't already have a page on RGL.

The new articles which are not GBG-related are: Dost, an Indian street food restaurant in Uxbridge; Bookworm, a second-hand bookshop in Carshalton; Raizes, a Brazilian restaurant in Bethnal Green; and Cafe Z Bar, a greasy spoon cafe in Stoke Newington.

So, those new GBG articles:
* All Inn One in Forest Hill;
* The Angel in Hayes End;
* The Argyll Arms in Soho;
* The Barnsbury in, er, oh guess;
* The Beehive in Bedfont;
* The Black Lion in Essex's Epping.
* The Botanist in Kew;
* The Coal Hole on the Strand;
* The Elm Park Tavern in Brixton;
* The Forester in West Ealing;
* The Grenadier in Belgravia;
* The Greyhound in Keston;
* The Hare in Bethnal Green;
* Howl at the Moon in Hoxton;
* Noble Green Wines, an off licence (not a pub) in Hampton Hill;
* The Old Sergeant in Wandsworth;
* The Queen's Head in Downe;
* The Railway Hotel in West Wickham;
* The Rising Sun in Surrey's Epsom;
* The Sir Michael Balcon in Ealing;
* The Sun in Carshalton;
* The Sussex Arms in Twickenham;
* The Swan in Hammersmith;
* The Three Greyhounds in Soho;
* The Walnut Tree in Leytonstone; and
* The Windmill in Mitcham.

No closures reported this week.