The Narrow Pub - A Real Shithole
I live probably less than a couple of hundred meters from the "famous" Narrow Pub, run/owned/pissed in by Gordon "fuckass" Ramsey. That's right the "famous" chef with a proclivity for swearing at everyone and thinking he's a great chef.
Well, in the almost three years I have been here I went to his shithole of a pub exactly twice.
This is my online review of his place which I frequented yesterday (this was the second time) and it reminded me of why I haven't been there for over a year. And I think people should know.
Honestly it would not be hard to make this place a success. It is filled with drunks regularly anyway because it's a pub and it's on the river, so the view is good and in this country getting drunk on whatever is on tap is a religious duty observed with clockwork regularity, however, this place is supposedly also a gourmet restaurant.
The first time we went everyone was disgusted with both the food, the service, the stupidity and incompetence of the staff in general and the price-tag. But that was over a year ago and the other nearby place I used to go to regularly has changed ownership and the new chef there seems to think garlic is manna from the sky which goes with all foods. How would you like some tuna-steak drenched in garlic? Pasta of any sort? Garlic in it. Cup-fulls. Vegetarian risotto? It might be, you'll never know thanks to the garlic. So given Friday was a sunny day and we had nothing to do except wander about and chill, I thought, let's go to the Narrow and just have a snack and a drink. How bad could it really be.
Bad. Very bad.
So here's my review. I am taking the style of a formal write-up as if I were to be published in the Times. I think it will make it more tollerable for me to recount the events this way.
We arrived at the Narrow at a couple of minutes past one. We went to the bar and I asked if they were serving food. I was immediately informed the kitchen was now closed and they were only doing pub food and not the main restaurant. A little odd given the time but ok, after all no one has ever accused a truly British establishment of working too hard, besides we only wanted a snack so it's fine. We order a bottle of sparkling water, a plate of bangers and mash for me and fishcakes of two fishes with salad for Redhead Girl.
We then wait a couple of minutes for our water bottle and glasses which are eventually served to us still drenched and covered in water-spots. But you know in a surly and rude manner so it went with the ambiance.
I take it in stride and begin to make my way to one of the tables in the sun, I am stopped by the barman-creature who almost shouts that we are not allowed in there. Now I am a mild-mannered wall-flower type myself normally, but this guy's attitude is starting to make my trigger finger itch. I turn back and looking at him square in the eye say "what?" in a way that I think registers with him despite his obviously accented English. The nicer barman takes over, he seems latino or perhaps indian, I can't say, but probably at some genetic level he can feel that the retarded east-block wanker with a fucking goatee that has a little ponytail in it and a little rubber-band in it might soon be coming over this side of the counter in a hurry if he carries on with his tone.
The Mexican barman (he's Mexican from now on) explains the restaurant is closed now. I point out, still looking at the goat-fucker barman from Estonia (he's from Estonia now) that there are people sitting in there. The Mexican explains that they were there before and now the restaurant is closed. So I ask him were we can sit and he explains any table that is not "made up" - that means that does not have a napkin and lose cutlery on it. Fine.
I appreciate the effort he made even though he wasn't exactly polite either, but I have worked alongside a goat-fucker before, and take pity on him, so we go find a table.
Very shortly afterwards our "food" arrives. Mine is two bland, packet-ready sausages with some mash and gravy with some onions in it. It's basic, nothing to write home about and there are chip-shops that will sell the same thing for a third of the price and it will taste better but it's basically sausages and mash, you can't really fuck it up too much.
Redhead Girl's plate contains ONE fishcake (perhaps they blended the two varieties of fish?) that again looks straight out of a box of frozen fish-fingers type supermarket food and (I kid you not) ONE leaf of rucula, representing the salad. And some slop, that purports to be horseradish. Or baby-puke. It's a close thing and we can't tell.
By this time we are done with the place, but wanting to be forgiving and probably because we are both childishly naivee at heart we decide to move outside in the sun and get a drink. I go back in to order a cider and an apple crumble.
Goat-fucker with the goatee with the rubber band in it is again displaying his natural charm. The place is not at all busy, there are three people at the bar, a pair of girls ordering, a black guy who is next in line and then me. Goat-fucker being a goat-fucker takes about 10 minutes to serve the two women, probably imagining graphic images of his goat back in Estonia while he nervously scratches at his balls between pouring drinks. The Mexican guy comes out to help and asks if he can serve anyone and goat-fucker immediately tells him the black guy is next. This is true and is fine with me...I am pleased he noticed the order of clientele despite his being a brain damaged syphilitic goat-fucker.
But I am premature in my optimism. Goat-fucker eventually finishes with the girls and immediately ignores me to serve the next, brand new, just walked in person. He does this clearly intentionally.
Which saves him really because I will not get upset when someone is actually trying to piss me off.
I wait then order and he immediately tells me they don't have any pear cider.
That's it. No substitute, no alternative. Just no pear cider full stop. So what cider do you have? He names them but says they are all apple. Fine. Give me an apple cider. And I order the apple crumble and he immediately says they have no vanilla ice-cream (it comes with vanilla ice-cream). I just look at him and wait. I actually look at him and lean on the counter and just keep staring at him in the eyes and I wait.
Eventually the same sense of goat-fucker self-preservation that probably limits him to raping goats instead of humans kicks in and he says they have custard or double cream. So I say fine, give me the cream. He asks custard or double cream again as if he was deaf, which he is not. I say the cream. He repeats it. Double cream? Yes.
I wait for the cider and glass and before I leave he again says...apple crumble...with double cream right?
Yes. Yes fuckwit. And just you try and wank in that apple crumble and then we'll see if your stupid pony-tail goatee comes off when I ram your head into the bar-counter by it. You dumb goat-rapist.
I go and wait for the apple crumble. 15 minutes go by. Now since the kitchen is closed there is no actual baking required. They just need to cut a fucking slice of pie and add some cream and take it over. After 15 minutes I go back in and now I am ready to receive some attitude, but also ready to give some in a way they will remember.
Goat-fucker sees me come in and I ask him where is my apple crumble? He says it's coming, don't worry, coming. He seems a little excited which I am not sure how to take, but at the same moment a woman comes out of the kitchen with the "apple crumble".
Now. There was NO apple to be seen, but the operative word here I am sure was crumble. It was basically some kind of cereal type crunchy stuff sprinkled on a bed of what may or may not have been rhubarb with pinkish sauce. Neither of us could determine what the stringy-vegetable-looking thing was. One of them was yello-green and we left that one in the plate. I tasted the rest because I am a curious person and also I was looking for an excuse to murder the goat-fucker. I still don't know what it was but one thing is certain. I am not going to ever eat in that shithole of a place again.
Oh and the total for this culinary delight? £ 33 and some pennies. And that is of course without any tip. The goat-fucker had the audacity to put my change in a plate at the bar to try and incite me to leave it behind. Not even the 5p coin, you fucking goat-fucking rapist. Fuck you and your stupid goatee-ponytail. And no, I don't give a shit if his whole family was sold into prostitution by the Estonian mob that morning. It's karma for all the goat-raping I say.
So Gordon, that, is why "fuckass" is your middle name now in my book. A brain damaged homeless person could manage that place better than you do.
Comments
Good work G man, I was getting worried about you with that funny photo of you as a rent boy in Canada and the puerile sex stuff. Mutant mosquitos and streams of conciousness about crap Gordon Ramsey pubs is the type of ground we want you to occupy.
This could some form of manefestation of the crumbling nature of our reality. Insects that cannot hold their form and morph into different forms, all of which are annoying, and foods that defy description. The goat fucker with the ponytail is a worrying development, you would hope that even the lowest goat would have some taste when it came to choosing their sexual partners This type of errant behaviour is further indication of the decay of our reality.
As the man said, "don't get out of the boat! God damn right!"
Hey, man no drugs in this neighbourhood. Not sure how you feel about fucking goats but first off they are alot less attractive than sheep and substantially more aggresive. Secondly, sex consensual or non consensual, with a goat would at best be considered unusual behaviour. Something has got to wrong with things if the number of these type of relationships increases as you suggest about the man with the goatee and his family who so annoyed you behind the bar at the Narrow Pub.
I would suggest you use your skills in Transurfing to mould reality to your own purpose and get that fly/mosqueto that was annoying you to infest this persons beard. Perhaps the mosqueto could invite some friends and they can have a party in his goatee, that would be most annoying for the host.
Anyway, apologies for this load of old bollocks. If you have any time in your schedule get your arse over here for a coffee or similar!
If that warehouse is in a goat-raping farm in Estonia and they ship the food to the pubs by goat train then yeah...I think possibly it would qualify. Because merely frozen food would have more character.
Also I object to Gordon Fuckass Ramsey not being referred to by his full proper name. If we must shorten it then let us do away with Gordon. Or Even Ramsey, though I do think Fuckass Ramsey has a certain je ne sais quoi which suits better than Gordon Fuckass.
Please send this to The Times - you're sure to be snapped up as their newest food critic.
Bad and stupid service makes my blood boil. We recently took the children to a greek restaurant but when we ordered hummus and dips we were told there was just hummus and no carrots or cucumber. They also had no fruit juice so we ordered milk for the children and we were told that we couldn't have it. "You don't have milk?" (thinking they must have milk for coffee/tea etc.), "Yes we do have milk but you can't have it", "Why?", "Because there is no button on the till for it", "Why don't you press the button for fruit juice but give us milk?", "Because there is no button for it", "Can I speak to your manager please?" - we get milk in the end and for free but this was a restaurant on a busy high street with a Tescos across the road - surely it's not beyond the wit of someone to go across and get a bag of carrots and a couple of cucumbers for the kitchen and a few cartons of fruit juice for the bar?