The Crown, Southport [Session – 04/02/2011]

The Crown, Ainsdale (Southport)

You will all have noticed that, recently, RH and I seem to have been eating nothing but fast-food for the purposes of our no-nonsense reviews – with mixed results to say the least. Predictably, we’ve become a little bit sick of it, and were in the mood to move back onto what has traditionally been ‘safer’ ground – the humble British pub.

It’s been documented in these pages previously that we struggle badly these days to find pubs that serve decent food, so I won’t repeat myself. Suffice to say that we’d heard fairly promising things about The Crown in Ainsdale, near Southport, which is part of the Sizzling Pubs Co.

Now, given that the problems with many of our old haunts can be attributed to a large pub-chain taking over, we were naturally sceptical about a pub that was part of the Sizzling Pub franchise. It’s the kind of place where you can get 2 meals for £5 – ludicrously cheap by today’s standards, but usually with a level of quality to match. Nonetheless, we were in the Southport vicinity and (for reasons explained below) had very few other options, so decided to give it a whirl.

It’s worth mentioning at this stage that we’d already visited two other pubs in Southport with the intention of eating there (again, on the strength of favourable recommendations). Those pubs were The Falstaff on King Street, Southport and The Fishermans Rest on Weld Road, Birkdale. The Falstaff came highly recommended, but upon entering the place we were greeted by a smell akin to that of an old folk’s home, which was hugely off-putting. We glanced at the cheap-looking menus and noted that a good portion of the options had been deleted with a marker-pen, leaving a very disappointing selection of dishes. Things didn’t look good, so we decided to try somewhere else. This particular Sess’ was, in part, celebration of RH’s recent birthday, so we weren’t in the mood to be fucked about.

On then to The Fishermans Rest (bad grammar, but that’s the name), which once upon a time had been our favourite pub, due to its incomparable mixed grill. Alas, several years ago the pub seemed to undergo somewhat of an ‘overhaul’, resulting in a new menu and horrible food. For old times’ sake we gave it another chance, but again were disappointed on arrival. The whole place has been painted white inside, and the pool table on which we used to while away many an enjoyable hour had gone, replaced by couches and bean-bags. Furthermore, the menu only had about 5 meals on it. What used to be a traditional British pub has turned into some kind of shit wine-bar.

By this point, having traipsed around for what felt like hours, RH and I were starving. By the time we got to The Crown, it was about 2 o’clock. This was on a Friday (RH and I both had the day off), and towards the end of what is usually the ‘lunchtime rush’. Accordingly, we expected the place to be fairly empty, however we were shocked to find that the car park was almost completely full. This wouldn’t necessarily have been a bad thing, but a good deal of the inconsiderate guests had parked over 2 bays, meaning we struggled to park the car safely. You’d think that the staff or management of The Crown, if they had anything about them, would do something about that, especially if they’re expecting the pub to be busy, so as not to inconvenience other patrons.

Upon entering the pub itself we could see that it was, indeed, busy for a weekday. The low prices of their ‘2 meals for £5’ menu undoubtedly attract most of the diners – again no criticism can be made of that. What we CAN criticise, though, is the fact that we couldn’t see ANY clean tables. All of the vacant tables were filthy, covered with the used glasses (and in some cases used crockery) of previous diners. We chose the least filthy, and were forced to move the empty glasses ourselves. Needless to say, this meant that the table hadn’t been wiped, and so still bore traces of previous meals.

Upon picking up the menu, RH and I were both instantly impressed by the large selection of meals available – much more like what you’d expect from a pub than the other two establishments we’d tried earlier. Feeling nostalgic for great meals of yesteryear, RH went for the Mixed Grill, whilst I chose the King Size ‘Tipsy Steak Pie’:

The ‘king size’ option boasted that I’d get “a full pound of pie” – I was certainly hungry enough for that, so was looking forward to the meal. At £7.49 it certainly wasn’t cheap, but I wouldn’t mind as long as the food was good.

Whilst waiting for our meals to arrive, RH and I noticed that the atmosphere of the pub was actually quite good, which made a refreshing change to other pubs we’d visited recently. There were no loud children or rowdy, obnoxious guests, and the music being pumped over the sound system wasn’t unsociably loud, as we’ve found in a number of eateries lately.

Our condiments arrived before the food, and what instantly disappointed us was that the cutlery wasn’t wrapped in any kind of napkin, as is customary with most pubs. Instead, a mish-mash of old-looking cutlery (none of the designs on the individual implements matched one another) was thrown into the condiment container. There were in fact no napkins at all anywhere on our table – we’d have to ask the waitress for those when our meal arrived. I was impressed by the selection of condiments – above and beyond your usual ketchup and mayonnaise. They were only the small Heinz sachet variety, and I don’t usually use condiments anyway, but at least the options were there if needed.

After exactly 17 minutes of waiting, which is by no means unreasonable in a busy pub, our meals arrived. I say our meals arrived, but actually we only initially received MY meal, and half of RH’s. Bizarrely, they’d chosen to serve RH’s chips on a separate small side-plate, and he had to wait several more minutes for them. Not only was this inconvenient, but the side-plate looked ridiculous, and made RH feel like a child.

I was initially impressed by the gravy-boat – a touch which sadly lacks from most modern pie-dishes. On closer inspection though, I noticed that there was a kind of gravy ‘skin’ a centimetre or two above the actual gravy level. This indicated that either the boat hadn’t been washed after the last customer used it, or that my gravy had been sat there for ages, being constantly heated and re-heated. Either way, I was put-off my gravy.

Before I get on to the pie itself, let’s deal with the sides. The peas, as with any peas that you get in a pub, were of the cheap pre-frozen variety, and were nothing special at all. Worth noting is that there was no mushy-pea alternative, which I would have appreciated in this instance. The peas with this dish added absolutely nothing, and I’d actually have preferred not to have them, as they’re just an annoyance.

The chips, too, were clearly of the cheapest frozen ‘oven-chip’ variety. I thought instantly that they had an odd colour to them, and RH made exactly the same comment before I’d expressed it. Upon tasting, the chips were a disappointment. Not only were they more-or-less tasteless, but about half of them seemed to be under-cooked – cold and hard in the middle, which just ruined any enjoyment I could possibly have gained from them. I actually took the unusual step of using a condiment to add some flavour to the chips – Heinz French Mustard. This was alright, but chips are an essential part of any successful pub meal, and the addition of some French mustard couldn’t make up for the sub-standard fare on offer here.

Finally, I was ready to delve into the pie. As you can see, this was a decent size, at least in terms of diameter:

My first impression was that the pie was very shallow – what it had in circumference, it most certainly lacked in depth. When perusing the menu prior to ordering, I’d noticed the promotional picture of the chicken pie, and although we didn’t bother taking a picture of that, you can take my word for it that it was a deep pie – roughly three times as deep as the pie I’d been served here. Clearly, that wasn’t the pie that I’d ordered, so I can’t really complain, but I still felt like I’d been misled in some way. Either way, I was willing to put aside my misgivings and give the pie a fair crack of the whip – a tasty filling could easily make up for the lack of depth.

Alas, the pie was consistent with the other components of the meal, in that it was dreadful. I applied my gravy and set to work, but it was apparent straight away that the pastry was going to be horrible. It was extremely brittle, and sort of fell apart when I cut into the pie – a clear indication that it had spent a good deal of time sat in a freezer. The pastry (particularly that at the edge of the pie) managed to have a disturbing powdery texture, and a nasty, stodgy quality both at the same time, and tasted just like any other cheap frozen pastry. Not only that, but there was fucking loads of it. There was a good few centimetres of pastry at the edge of the pie, before you got to any actual filling. When I finally did get towards the centre of the pie, I started to wonder when I was going to hit the actual steak – I just seemed to be getting gravy.

As you can see from the above, the filling:crust ration of my pie was unacceptable, and that picture doesn’t actually do the situation justice. What little filling there was, was around 90% gravy/sauce and only about 10% actual meat. What’s obvious is that this pie is of the very cheapest sort, and I was becoming extremely angry that I’d shelled out £8 on it.

The actual taste of the filling wasn’t all that terrible, but there was no discernable taste of ale at all! I’d ordered and paid for what was supposed to be a steak & ale pie – what I’d got was only really half of my order, and not a very good half at that. Taken in conjunction with the horrible pastry, and woeful filling:crust ratio, this was certainly amongst the worst value-for-money pies I’d ever had.

As we were sat there, RH and I attempting to finish our meals for the sake of not wasting food or money, we started to wonder why, if the food is as sub-standard as this, is the place so full on a weekday? Yes, it’s possible that every other customer in the place has no taste and is happy to eat crap food, not knowing any differently, but this is an unlikely explanation. My theory is that 95% of the other people in there were eating from the ‘2 meals for £5’ menu, meaning that they were only paying £2.50 for their meals. They probably realise the food is garbage, but at that price they don’t give a shit. Now, that’s fine – and if I was to go to The Crown again I’d almost certainly order from that menu – but when you order one of their premium meals, and pay a premium price, you expect a large step-up in quality. I concluded that most of the options on the impressively-sized menu are merely a smokescreen; a marketing ploy to give the impression of limitless choice, thought-up by the crafty management who know full-well that none of their regulars are going to order any of it whilst the ‘2 for £5’ menu exists. The kitchen staff probably have no experience of making the more expensive meals, since nobody ever orders them – they’re so used to knocking together the cheap shit, that this is their default position, regardless of the order. I’d ordered a relatively expensive pie, but had just been given a slightly larger version of something that was actually on their budget menu (NB this is not an exaggeration – I noted before we left the pub that the ‘tipsy steak pie’ is one of the options on the ‘2 for £5’ menu). This angered me a great deal – I’d been essentially conned into paying £7.49 for something I could have had for a fraction of the price if I’d been a fucking cheapskate.

I’ll mention at this point that RH had actually looked at the dessert menu, and were intrigued by one of the options on it. We also had capacity for more food, having been unable to finish our main meals due to their poor quality. Under normal circumstances then, we’d have ordered the dessert and reviewed that aswell. By this point, however, we were so outraged by the poor food and dreadful value-for-money, that we just wanted to leave. Needless to say, we didn’t leave any tip.

Food: 2/10 – really disappointing, and dreadful value-for money

Ambience: 6.5/10 – actually pretty good. No annoying kids, and an acceptable volume of music

Staff: 5/10 – standard. Waitress brought napkins without complaint, but otherwise unremarkable.

Overall: 3.5/10 – badly let down by the food, and the price of that food.

MS

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Continuing our search for good pub grub, MS and I decided to venture into Southport with the hope of finding a suitable eatery. Before we eventually settled on The Crown (Ainsdale), we had already walked out of most of the pubs in Southport. Unfortunately, most eateries in this miserable seaside resort only seem to cater for pensioners. Instead of landlords/ladies advertising their ‘home made pie’, chalkboards had ‘2 for 1 on our pensioner’s lunch’ or ‘pensioner’s dinner served all day’ written all over them. Town centre pubs such as The Falstaff were particularly unwelcoming to anyone with a sense of smell. Virtually every dish they served seemed to be a different combination of words ‘liver’ and ‘onions’. The general atmosphere of the place could be compared to a nursing home, which is not surprising seeing as their entire clientele were as old as the Victorian building they were sat in. It’s a shame, really, because The Falstaff is a very nice building. Anyway, we obviously weren’t going to sit amongst elderly people eating substandard grub, so moved on.

The next pub we tried was the Fishermens’ Rest, which in years gone by served some of the heartiest food in Southport. The first thing we noticed upon entering the building was a tradesman, covered in cement, leaning over the bar, drinking his pint. Now, I have nothing against tradesmen, but they shouldn’t be allowed entrance to an eatery if they’re covered in fucking building materials. The Fishermens’ Rest used to be decorated with nautical furnishings which suited its location and history. Unfortunately, the new landlord has decided to strip away all of this décor replacing it with vodka bar fixtures and fittings. The old pool table has also been ripped out, and in its place, beanbags and scatter cushions. Yes, fucking beanbags in a traditional shore side pub. The oak bar had been painted a glossy white colour which just looked ridiculous. And finally, the menu, which was very small, seemed massively overpriced for what was on offer. Needless to say, MS and I soon fucked off and headed towards Ainsdale.

A pub named The Crown had recently been refurbished and we’d heard good things about the food, so decided to give it a shot. As we entered the premises, annoyingly, there was an immediate problem. Whoever was responsible for painting The Crown’s parking spaces seemed to have used a toy car as a reference for dividing up the bays. After a lot of pissing about, I managed to squeeze my vehicle between two cars. This was only the start of my problems, as once I’d engaged the handbrake, I realised my doors wouldn’t open wide enough for MS and I to get out. Had we been in a 3 door coupé, we’d have almost certainly been unable to exit such a vehicle, and therefore would have had to eat elsewhere. Fortunately, my car doors were just small enough to open, and so, after a long and hard struggle, we eventually exited the vehicle, and walked into the pub.

This wasn’t the best of starts for The Crown, but all could be forgiven if we were served a good meal and treated properly by the staff. One detail I noticed as I walked in was that they had a ‘no under 18s’ door policy. This, for me, more than made up for the lack of line-painting intelligence we’d encountered in the car park. Of course, that brief high became an almighty low when we realised we couldn’t actually sit down. Yes, for some reason, instead of the staff clearing tables before diners sat down, they left it up to their customers to do it for them. This was a fucking disgrace as there must have been at least 5 or 6 tables that were covered in shit. Reluctantly, MS and I removed the previous customer’s ice cream sundae dish, sat down, and glanced through the menu. The menu was actually very good. Not only was it nicely laid out, but it featured a vast amount of dishes at (what seemed like) very reasonable prices. The menu and door policy were enough to prevent MS and I walking out of yet another pub. This is not to say we were impressed by the indolent staff or the atrocious car park, though.

Anyway, instead of fucking about with starters, we decided to just order a large main. MS was in the mood for a good steak pie and I felt the need to sample their ‘mighty mixed grill’. Because I was especially hungry, I decided to go for the “KINGSIZE 28oz of meat” option.  Mixed grills tend to be the most expensive choice on pub menus, so at just short of £9, this king size option seemed very well-priced. Once we’d picked our dishes, we placed our order at the bar. The barman was friendly enough, which will count in The Crown’s favour. We then returned to our seats and waited patiently for our food.

The first example of poor customer service came in the form of an unenthusiastic waitress dumping condiments on our table in an aggressive manner. Perhaps she mistook us for someone who’s wronged her in the past, but those condiments couldn’t have been placed down with any less grace. The condiments mainly consisted of Heinz sauce sachets; this was a good indication that the rest of the pub’s produce would also be pre-wrapped, mass-produced shite. Not only did we receive threatening looks from the venomous waitress, but she had failed to provide us with any napkins. What the fuck was her problem? Anyway, this meant that MS was forced to walk up to the bar and beg the waitress to relinquish some of the napkins she seemed so possessive of.

After an acceptable amount of waiting time, MS received his dish. As MS is polite, he didn’t want to start it until my food had arrived. After a good 5 minutes, my order still hadn’t arrived, so MS was forced to start his before it went cold. Eventually, after MS had virtually finished his meal, my dish finally arrived, served with the same lack of enthusiasm we’d come to expect from the disgruntled waitress.

There were two things that caught my eye immediately. Firstly, where THE FUCK were my chips? Secondly, why THE FUCK does my KINGSIZE mixed grill look exactly the same as the regular mixed grill depicted in their POS? I was very insulted, but strangely, this was just the start of my ordeal. After a good few minutes, my chips finally arrived on a separate plate. Let’s remember that MS had been served his meal a good 7 minutes before mine had even arrived, so by the time the chips were served, MS had finished. Why did they even need a separate plate for the chips? MS’ plate would have been large enough to fit my pathetically-small mixed grill onto it with more than enough room for a serving of chips as well. It was mindless, but there was still a good possibility that this food could actually taste decent, and therefore make up for a multitude of mistakes.

Unsurprisingly, the food tasted as bad as it looked. I now realised why my meal was 7 minutes late:  EVERYTHING was over-cooked! Not only was every item of food overdone, but it was also of an unnaturally poor standard. I’ve eaten some shitty meat in my time, but this platter of dog food was some of the worst. I’ll go through each item to try and convey why it was so unbelievably foul.

Let’s start with the sausages. If you inspect this image of the menu, The Crown would appear to serve thick and juicy bangers cooked to perfection:

My sorry slithers of alleged pork had the circumference of a pencil, had been blackened under intense heat and were unnaturally pale in colour. After taking a bite out of one it became apparent that these were frozen, discount brand sausages of an incredibly poor standard. There were also a number of foreign bodies contained within my sausages that neither MS nor I could explain:

Having just tasted the worst sausage meat I’ve ever attempted to consume, it was time to move onto my gammon steak. This was actually a contender for the worst meat on the plate as it was virtually inedible. Just look at the shape of it:

Amongst the gristle and fat – of which there was a lot of – lay probably the worst example of ‘pork’ I’d ever encountered. Not only was the steak no thicker than a slice of bacon, but it was completely devoid of moisture. It was dry, overcooked, substandard shite that should not have been allowed to pass off as a gammon steak.

Moving onto the chicken breast, we find that ‘overcooked’ and ‘dry’ once again become key adjectives in describing this pulverised poultry. The chicken, which had obviously lived its life on a battery farm, had absolutely no taste to it whatsoever. Oddly, though, this was the best part of the meal, which meant I came quite close to actually finishing it off. Of course, this had nothing to do with the fact I was enjoying eating it; I was just very hungry.

Everything on the plate up until the rump steak had been a fucking joke, which meant that I wasn’t expecting much from this low grade hunk of beef. I assumed it was low grade just from looking at it. Again, it was not much thicker than a slice of bacon, and seemed to consist of mainly gristle and fat. The Crown had at least provided me with a steak knife to cut into it, but even this sharpened utensil struggled to divide the meat up. The stringy and overcooked meat was dreadfully dry and tremendously tough. Upon tasting it, I began to question whether it was actually meat. This ‘rump steak’ literally tasted of nothing; it was that bad.

All that was left on my (first) plate was a mound of soggy onions, and (on my separate plate) a small portion of chips. The unusually-pale chips were seemingly cut from a very poor set of spuds. I suspect these chips were made from leftover potatoes, as virtually all of them were covered in eye buds. Unsurprisingly, the chips were fucking tasteless. They had so little taste in fact that I had to make use of one of the Heinz tomato sauce sachets in an attempt to add some flavour to them. I NEVER use tomato sauce on chips, as if they’re cooked properly, additional seasoning isn’t necessary.

The Crown’s take on the mixed grill was a fucking insult. The staff seemed to get everything wrong that day, including the glasses our Pepsi drinks were served in:

The glasses don’t necessarily have to say Pepsi on them (although that would be preferred), but they should at least be of the same type. Serving the same drink in two odd-shaped glasses is just lazy.

Perhaps the only positive aspect of The Crown was its general ambience. Firstly, there was music, but it was subtle enough for me not to pay any real attention to it. Unfortunately, too many establishments seem to think loud music is preferred to private conversation. It isn’t. Secondly, because there were no screaming children, it meant that aside from music, the only background noise that we could hear was adult conversation. It’s such a shame that the food and service couldn’t match the decent atmosphere.

I wouldn’t even serve that shit to a starving dog.

Overall, our dining experience at The Crown was absolutely appalling. Aside from the barman, not one member of staff was doing their job properly. The boorish waitress was inattentive and the chef clearly hadn’t a clue how to cook or prepare food. In reality, the only person to blame is the restaurant manager. As well as staff training, the manager is in charge of finding a suitable catering company to supply the pub’s kitchen. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference who cooked the shockingly poor quality of food, as evidently, it wasn’t fit for human consumption. I could have put up with the deceptive menu, the deranged car park and the poor customer service had the food been of a good standard, but it just wasn’t. I really hope that nobody has the misfortune of ordering The Crown’s KINGSIZE mixed grill, as it will discourage you from ever eating out again.

Ambience:  6/10 (the best thing about The Crown)

Service: 1/10 (the barman smiled, so that deserves a point)

Food: 0/10 (yes, NNR’s first zero)

 

Overall: 1/10 – I’d like to reward The Crown with a zero, I really would, but there’s no denying the atmosphere was above average. AVOID THIS SHITHOLE AT ALL COSTS.

RH

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