The GlassHouse, New Malden

Lovely inside, beautiful garden, and has a car park, a big plus as it's really diffciult to park in the road this end of New Malden. But it's really expensive, cheapest wine is around �5 for a standard 175ml glass, going up to �7.50 for 250ml, although they do have a very large selection of wines. Food is quite good, but also over-priced. Over �7 for a ham & cheese omelette (2 eggs I guess), with an uninspiring green salad, chips �3.50 extra! Crayfish salad was artistically presented but was mainly crayfish, hardly any salad. They've obviously spent a lot on refurbishing this place and are now trying to get it back from the customers! Last time we went mid week at lunchtime it was packed, this time it was fairly quiet, but food still took 30 minutes to arrive. I don't think I'll become a regular there.

1 Jul 2009 14:23

The Royal Oak, New Malden

We really like this pub, and I was surprised at the comment that it needs a facelift, because it was refurbished on the inside just a year or so ago. I think it's quite homely and friendly and perhaps they've gone deliberately for the 'shabby chic' look beceause it's quite old. The garden is a bit shabby and nondescript and could do with some brightening up. The food is excellent and this is one of the few establishments in this area that gets near top marks for food hygiene on a recent inspection. Several local eateries got only 1 or 2 stars out of a possible 5, this got 4. The only problem is car parking - very small car park and it's not a good area for street parking, with very narrow roads and lots of commuter parking during the day, but it's on a bus route and close to the station!

25 Jul 2008 16:09

The Morden Brook, Morden

This was a really nice pub a year or so ago, with friendly staff and good service, but I suspect the management might have changed because our visit there yesterday for lunch left a lot to be desired. It's quite a large pub, often used for post-funeral wakes as it's close to the cemetery, but it was fairly quiet yesterday. Only two young female staff in the bar, and they had to serve at the bar, serve food and clear tables. I waited 15 minutes just to order food at the bar. They really weren't coping well and one of them was wandering around in a dream, she twice tried to deliver our food to the wrong table.

The menu is quite extensive and very reasonably priced, but we had to wait 45 minutes for our food. No apology when it did arrive, and of the three meals we had one of them (chilli con carne) was lukewarm, had a skin on top and two large chunks out of the dish; a second meal had cold chips and undercooked peas; the third was OK. We sent the chilli back and it did arrive in a new unbroken dish, without the skin on top and hot, but there was no apology at all.

The place seemed to have gone downhill since I was last there, which was only a few months ago. It looked tatty, with out of date posters. The staff looked pretty miserable and were hardly welcoming, but I did feel rather sorry for them beacuse there's no way two junior staff can run a pub that size on their own, even when it's not very busy. Unlikely to go there again.

25 Jul 2008 15:58