On Saturday night I paid a visit to Traffik, a bar I frequent in Hoxton square purely because,having tried probably every Mojito in London, I have discovered that theirs are by far the best....in fact the barman started making my Sour Mojito as soon as I walked in which is probably not a good sign. Anyway , after five of these I was well on my way to pissedom so needless to say when we awake on Sunday feeling like Ghandi's flip flop we decided to go on a hunt for the perfect sunday roast.
Now, being London, you would think this an easy feat. Not if you are in Islington, it bloody well isn't. There are very few pubs left that sell a simple, stodgy, hangover curing roast dinner. No, they all have to be ponced up with pan fried this and sauteed that.....take The Narrowboat, for instance. Situated along Regents Canal, and 5 minutes from the house I grew up in, it was a fave haunt for me and all my mates when we were in our late teens. Many a Sunday was spent in there, making our crappy wages stretch out, playing Ocean Colour Scene and Oasis on the jukebox, laughing with Alan the landlord.(This is back in the days when Islington was a bit of a dump,rather than a des res, and real Islingtonians had yet to be priced out by stockbrokers from Surrey) I knew it had changed....but was totally unprepared for how much.
I walked in there yesterday lunchtime through an entrance which was previously the toilets and is now a celebration of all things chrome , Habitat and Heals had obviously been at work here. Up the stairs I went, hoping to catch a glimpse of my old haunt.....nope, no such luck. Everything is now bleached-wood cladded, sanded down to within an inch of its life, with lots more Habitat and Heals tables full of men and women wearing Chino's and linen. The worst part of all is that they had got rid of our Jukebox,the perfect 'soundtrack to the 90's britpop scene' jukebox , and replaced it with 'chilled' pipe music which made me feel like I needed to go out and buy Joss sticks, and they had done an 'All Bar One' and put the menu's up on massive blackboards.
"Nevermind," said my friend, "it has a new chef, at least the food will be good."
It really , really wasn't.
Please, leave our pubs alone!!!!!