UKC

Appropriate for 'Down the Pub' as last night it was my misfortune to be wined and dined at some soul-less Berni-Inn-esque new Motel/bar/Eatery called The Two Henrys on the edge of Shrewsbury.
As with 90% of pub meals I've had in the last five years the meal was truly horrendous. Why do pubs serving food think a salad is tearing up a few lettuce leaves,throwing in a few chunks of unripened tasteless tomatoes and anything the 'chef' thinks is appropriate and serving it up without dressing ?

Talk about the bland leading the bland !

Point is. The UK produces some of the best food in the world. We have world class chefs. Shops and supermarkets selling a variety of foodstuffs undreamt of twenty years ago. We are bombarded with TV programmes about good food...the glossy weekend mags are full of articles about good food.

However, despite the above I would say the average Briton eats a hell of a lot worse than the average European.
Eating holes like the above abomination in Shrewsbury are the norm not the exception.We accept crap food so we get crap food. It's a vicious circle.
The UK growing obesity stats prove we are eating more processed convenience crap than ever before despite all the positives imported from abroad which I've highlighted above.

Next time someone invites me to go for a pub meal I'll politely inform them that I would rather eat the contents of a cat litter than endure one more stale crouton !

In reply to Jonno:


a quick google shows it is a chain pub which even has a fking childrens play area.

go to a decent small pub and you will stand a chance of decent food (admittedly some dont really care about food). Go to a chain pub and you are effectively macdonalding with beer.

In reply to Jonno:
If you really want to get yourself het up about this you should read this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0007219946/026-5961393-0874811?v=glance&...
You'll be frothing at the mouth (& not with synthetic cappucino) by the time you've finished it!

In reply to Jonno:

British food can be superb, the problem was, it took us too long to realise it so we had to suffer interminable Italian restaurants churning out the same mama's recipes, so so French and fusion and endless Asian / Chinese.

There is a movement now to bring back sold, simple British cooking - mainly seafood dishes, but also game.

One thing about London - there are some superb eateries down here and a young lad could easily outgrow his expense account

The weird boring guy from work was trying to explain this to me the other day. Before completely losing consciousness I think he was trying to say that a nations cuisine is dictated by the fuel locally available. Britain was long dependant on peat and coal therefore it lent itself to a slow roasting style of cooking. Eastern countries were more reliant on oil (which was expensive) so went for a quick minimal approach to the cooking.

I aggree with the above comments - when did the currently accepted range of dishes become engrained as 'British food'? In terms of seafood and game we have a great selection - unfortunately these arent't used enough so we end up with endless 'roast dinners' and bloody chicken in a basket.

In reply to Jonno:

try and avoid pubs that have kids play areas
try and avoid chain pubs where the "food" is just microwaved

look at the rise of readymeals in the uk though - not to the same degree anywhere else in the world, so no wonder pubs etc think they can get away with serving keich

I regulary now think that my home made dinner is better than what I get when eating out

when last did you get REAL chips instead of frozen reconstituted ones ?

In reply to John Rushby:

To the man whos body is a temple, here is how to turn it into a mortuary;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A306721

In reply to sutty:

My body is not so much a temple, as a former methodist chapel which is now a trendy wine bar.

In reply to Jonno: Shropshire isn't entirely short of good pubs and restaraunts serving excellent seasonal, regional food. Next time, you choose the venue.

In reply to John Rushby:

Not sure who said this but I like it:

My body isn't a temple, it's an amusement park.

In reply to Jonno: because everybody trys to cook like 'im off t'telly.

I saw a very interesting programme on post war eating habits and the british service industry. To sum it up weve been shit at it since at least the first world war, the second world war and subsequent rationing after compounded it.
Essentially it allowed even worse service and poor cooking even after the rationing had stopped in the 50's and the degradation of our national dishes into appaling badly cooked muck. Hence the intro of italians/french etc eateries were seen as the way forward for people searching for decent dining out. All food for thought arf arf.
My bug bear is why can you get 30 different dishes from most places, all very ordinary and poorly cooked when 1 or 2 would suffice if cooked well

In reply to John Rushby:

HA! i am going to use that later and pretend i am funny and original

In reply to Himalaya:

My body is a skip

In reply to Himalaya:

or the terry pratchett approach
"a temple where dubious rituals are carried out in the basement"

In reply to John Rushby:


My mum used to tell me and my sister

"your body is a temple"

she wasn't amused with my sister's reply

"what's the point in having a temple if nobody's going to come visit?"

In reply to Jonno:

I think its because 'we', as a nation, are still not that interested in food quality and are certainly not prepared to pay 'extra' for it. France and Italy for example have a committment to quality mostly stemming from a large land-based peasantry. These countries have hypermarkets and service stations selling good food and still manage to support good local food shops. It pains me every time I return to this country from such places having to still put up with average food.

In reply to Yorkspud: Be prepared for lots of tales of shit food in France.

In reply to Jonno:

There's a really big generational gap when it comes to food now. I find that very few people my age know how to cook - cooking to them is putting chips and a chicken kiev in the oven for 25mins. It's one thing looking at a recipe but if you don't know how to fold something in, or knead it, or what simmering point looks like it's like reading a different language. At some point we have broken the chain whereby parents taught their kids how to cook and the growing acceptance of awful reheated frozen food in pubs/restaurants etc is a sign that many of us have clearly not learnt how to eat.

We have a very unhealthy attitude towards food in this country. There are so many people who have an almost confrontational attitude towards food, seeing it as their enemy if they have weight problems or using it as an emotional tool. Compare that with the appreciation and culture of food on the continent and you can see why they have a better standard of cuisine. The celebrity chef culture isn't necessarily a good thing either - I think watching professionals knock up fancy dishes on TV is laible to make people feel that cooking always has to be complex and/or should be done by professionals. What reason can there be for the massive increase in celeb chef cookery books and tv series' to be accompanied by a greater increase in sales of ready meals and the fallacy of 'fresh' cook-chill meals.

Grr, sorry, rant over. Food is just something that I hate to see abused.

In reply to Jonno: you can eat some of the finest food in the world in Britain.

In reply to Stormmagnet:

The point about French shopping habits is that they use both hypermarkets and the small shops. Hypermarkets once a week/fortnight/month for stocking up on stuff, and bakeries, butchers, grocery shops daily to get fresh food.

Having lived in France for a while I can see that their attitude to shopping is completely different to ours. The British have been conned into thinking that shopping at a supermarket is cheaper and more convenient than going to your local shop, whereas neither of those things are true.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

and a lot of it is just down the road from the two henrys in Ludlow. The op really got a bum deal, if he had to eat there

In reply to martin riddell:

When I last cooked a lovely 21 day matured steak, and topped it all with worcester sauce onions and a dhas of peppercorn sauce. And of course. Peas

I have a deep fat fryer specifically for this purpose.

However, I have to say I have NEVER (even in sopme fairly posh places as well) had steak as good as the ones I buy and cook at home myself at a restaraunt. But then I was brought up to cook cordon bleau from about 3 so I think Im a bit fussy :oS But no, Im always disappointed with this simplest of requests when eating out: a good steak and chips. If they cant even cook that how can you expect them to do anything else well?

I bought the pudding club of Britains cook book recently. Full of wonderfully simple recipes, perfect for after well cooked stew and dumplings. Yum

In reply to climbingpixie:

I do have to agree with you. I worked with some italian women who were appauled that British girls found it 'funny' that they couldnt cook. And its true, its like a lot of things now, if you cant do it, make a joke out of it and leave it to someone else.

Personally, I will very rarely if ever use a sauce from a jar and very rarely eat ready meals. Id rather have beans on toast at the very least, at least I know whats in it!

In reply to Anni:

modern British seafood is where it is at.

hmmmm - wonder if I can get to J Sheekey this afternoon ?

In reply to Jonno: Because at then end of the day, "Two meals for £5" speaks much louder than "Only local organic good sold here!".

Why did you go to this place. You can tell before you have even walked through the door that the food is going to be shite so why bother?

As long as there are punters like yourself prepared to eat at these places, places like this will serve shite food.

In reply to Stormmagnet:

I expect so but probbaly their own fault. Point is its much easier to get good food in France and Italy.

In reply to Yorkspud: I agree with you 100%, but last time I raised this issue that was the responce I got.

In reply to Jonno: I would say stay away from pub chains, it is just industrial recycled food (the stuff the shops don't buy). Try cooking at home and enjoy the creative process not just the eating. Most time meals you make yourself taste better than the pub grub. Its all about the time and effort you put in, if you value the ingredients you will be rewarded.

In reply to Jonno:

i was lucky when growing up in that my dad is spanish and would not eat most of the stuff served as food in this country. I remember he shipped his mum over to england a few times a year to teach my mum how to cook! (she needed it as shes from belfast) Back in those days you couldnt get the ingredients you can now so we used to get a lot of stuff in bulk from spain and from specialists. Even now the produce in our supermarkets is no were near as good quality as in spanish supermarkets and it's also far more expensive!

i grew up eating very well compared to my peers. i remember allways bieng embarrased round thier houses as i really didnt like fish fingers or oven chips ect.

in Spain they talk about food all the time like the english talk about the weather.

In reply to MattieS:

That is it, off to a proper chippy for proper chips prepared on the premises with a near perfect fish and some fresh crusty bread from the bakery to make butties with.
IT'S FRIDAY!!!

In reply to Jonno: I was just talking about this today.

I'd love to look at the marketing and psychology associated with the UK view on fresh seafood.

If I'm correct somthing ike 90% of the mussels produced in the Menai Straits is exported. WE used to export Nephrops as the UK consumer generally wanted 'scampi' not the higher quality whole animal. We'd get 3 times the price for the same product in europe.

In reply to climbingpixie:

Haha, guess what I had last night!
Normally cook well though - particularly enjoy cooking fresh seafood and am building up a good collection of fresh fish meals.

In reply to Anni:


Yup, my idea of fast food is a nice mushroom and cheese omelette or beans on toast etc. Occasionally I will get one of those fresh tortellini things and some carbonara sauce, just cause it's ready in 2 mins. But I'm lucky, my mum is a fantastic cook and taught me an appreciation of food as well as a basic range of skills. Judging by the quality of the food I remember eating at friends' houses as a kid there are a lot of people who've never had that.

In reply to Anni:

you must have a lot of time on your hands!!!

In reply to Castleman:

You should try smoked fish and prawn pancakes. Stir flaked smoked fish, prawns and mushrooms into a nice think white sauce and wrap dollops of it up in pancakes. Put pancakes in a roasting dish, cover with cheese sauce and cook in the oven. Fabulous with buttery new potatoes and asparagus.

In reply to Jonno:

I work for the company that supplies most of the bland pre-cooked mush that gets served in pubs these days. Funny really - I went to a meeting with one of the French companies we work with, and we were discussing much the same thing. The French branch of our company is no where near as sucessful as we are. We basically put it down the the Brits having a different attitude to food than others. This was over a rather nice meal in the French equavlent of a Little Chef!

I think the majority desire for bland and boring food reflects a lot upon English society.

In reply to Jon Dittman:


I went to one of these and ordered 'roasted mediterranean vegtables n pasta'.

The finished product was a selection of deeply unsavoury fragments of fried onion and other shredded lumps floating atop a sea of flacid pasta and sump oil.

yummie yum

In reply to dissonance:


And, what's worse, McBeer (tm), at that.

In reply to Jonno:

I think some areas are better at food than others. After a week's holiday in North wales I did come to the conclusion that they have no conception of what good food is like. The same goes for Fife where they equate big portions with quality.

On the other hand, eating out in Embra is usually a pleasant affair as is eating out in the North West Highlands. I've also had some very nice bar meals in The Lakes. Come to think of it one of my lifetime great meals was a perfect Greek Salad and a pint of Castle Eden seved in the cafe in Kendal Library.

In reply to Jonno:
If you go into a Berni inn you have only yourself to blame. You could have gone into Shrewsbury and visited "Armoury", excellent range of food, or "Three Fishes" fresh food. Also I have it on good authority that "The Druids Inn" at Birchover, a gritstones throw from Cratcliffe, does food worthy of a few Michelin stars.

Also I would add that contrary to popular myth I have had some dire meals on the continent.

In mitigation, I have to say that I was taken to the above eatery as a guest...work stuff. Normally I wouldn't be dragged anywhere near a chain pub that does meals.
I have partaken of pub meals at small country pubs but these are inevitably crap too.
Last decent nose bag I had on at a country pub was The Kilberry Inn, Knapdale,Argyll.

In reply to Jonno: If you want crap food, go to Croatia. Drove from Slovenia through to Pula and could't find anywhere that sold food apart from the odd roadside pig on a spit.

In reply to Jonno:

There is a reasonable place just off the A55 near Abergele that did me an excellent fish dish off the specials board, but the rest of the menu seemed improved standard pub fare cooked well.

In reply to Stormmagnet:

Because it's true.

The last time, no-one was saying that *on average* gthe food you get out isn't better in France than you get in the UK.

What those of us who'd found it almost as difficult in parts of France to find good restaurant food as in most of the UK were saying was simply that:

(a) You *can* find good food in the UK, and it can often be more interesting or innovative than good food in France.

(b) France has a reputation for being "the" place to eat well that, comparatively, may have been true 30-40 years ago , but which is now well past its sell-by date. Restaurant eating in France has noticeably degraded in the 30 years that I've been going there, whereas non-chain restaurant eating in the UK has improved a lot. The "average" gap is now much narrower.

On shop-bought food for home cooking, though, the difference is still enormous. I can find good quality ingredients in the UK but I have to look for them. In France most places sell good quality stuff.

In reply to Iain Ridgway:

When I visited my sister in Findhorn I always used to buy a large bag of "Moray Firth prawns" from the (now sadly deceased) Steward at the Yacht Club. When cooked the shells were more "brownish" than the generally "pinkish" langoustines I'd get in Brittany, and the shells seemed a bit tougher, too. They were incomparably more "meaty" and flavourful than the langoustines.

Not seen them since Jeff died, though. Are they a specific sub-species, or is it just the environment they live in (colder water) that makes them so much more tasty?

In reply to Wingman@work:

Doesn't take time to cook well. I can make a nice mushroom omelette with a chunk of bread and a tomato salad in the time it takes my daughter to "make" a pot noodle.

In reply to Rob Naylor:

That is exactly what I did on Wednesday when I found all sorts of bits in the fridge. Put pan on to heat with some sliced cherry tomatoes in with a drop of oil, whipped the eggs, sliced a couple of mushrooms, sliced a knob of cheese left and when toms were starting to brown took them out, wiped the pan and added butter and made the omelette. While it was setting laid out the salad and then served it up. Ten minutes?

In reply to Jonno:

Went to my nearest 1* Michelin restaurant last night - absolutely superb and expensive but not too bad - http://www.lagalupe.com/AubergeLaGalupe-LaCarte.php - they had a special of cepes that was out of this world. It's true that France has great food but the people demand it.

In reply to Rob Naylor: Not sure, darker shells can be for a number of environmental and post mortem reasons. Were they Nephrops? www.dvz.be/images/Photo's/Nephrops.jpg

Or another crustacean?

I've never eaten east coast prawns. There's no sub species but depth and local environment is said to affect taste. I'd like to look at the taste and texture of prawns from different environments and following different treatments. My previous research suggests capture method may really affect taste.

In reply to Iain Ridgway:

Definitely nephrops...exactly like the langoustines I get in Brittany, but slightly darker (and tougher-seeming) shells...more browny than pinky. Generally a bit bigger, too: but I reckon that was because Jeff sorted me out the "good" ones.

Not seen them for years, though.

In reply to sutty: We'll all be round for Sunday lunch!

In reply to Jonno:
On a related note it is far easier to get vegetarian food in England and Wales than practically anywhere else in Europe! I have veggie friends and they always struggle on the continent (and in Scotland). Even the supposedly veggie salad had ham in it.

I've noticed a number of people blaming the current generation. I suspect its the previous generations that have caused the problem. My folks for instance will only eat junk. By junk I mean 'fry-ups', sunday roasts, chips oh and pies. This seem to be common amongst people born in the 40's. Any sign of flavoursome food leads to yells of "foreign muck!". They both have health problems that could be attributed to their diet. Their doctor keeps giving them pills for cholesterol and high blood pressure yet never offers dietary advice. They won't listen to me - I lose my rag once in a while and the prepare a token dry limp salad, which they obviously hate....

In reply to Duncan Bourne:

They should come to Edinburgh. We have heaps of veggie restaurants.

In reply to daveg360:

I agree. I never ate spagetti, or had a dressing with salad, until I left school for uni. The prospect of 'foreign muck' on the dining table was never there

In reply to daveg360:

Why not prepare them a healthy meal sometimes instead of ranting, something they will like with rice such as paella or kedgeree with side dish of roast veg so they can pick and mix?

Do them a decent salad, make a dressing to put on it they will like, a basic one, add a bit of mustard, herbs, and put a bit on different salad bowls, it will cost pence to find the one they prefer.

Show them how easy it is to stir-fry, preparation takes longer but the overall time from start to table is usually less.