The Albany Pub & Dining Room

Just moved to Twickenham - very good cheap gastopub - loved the steak and triple baked chips.
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Michael
9 Overall rating
Food 8 | Service 8 | Atmosphere 8 | Value for money 10
Thursday, January 21, 2010

Sunday afternoon and the sun is shining what better place to have a quick bite to eat but my old favourite the Albany Tavern, well I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Firstly it never helps when you are dining in the Mary Celeste, however having eaten at the Albany several times before I encouraged my guest not to be put off. Another mistake as it turns out. I started with the Half a Pint of Fresh Atlantic Prawns, well I would most certainly dispute the idea that they were fresh, the prawns were warm as if they had just been defrosted in hot water, as was the dirty glass they came in. This would have been bad enough but they were small Prawns which are always fairly tasteless and normally full of prawn eggs. My guest went for the Thai Pork rolls which were greasy and over cooked, and just to complete the taste sensation they were served on a deep-fried bed of Savoy cabbage which was unnecessary and burnt, anyway like there wasn’t enough lard on the dish already!

So after having the offending dishes returned we shared a plate of mediocre humous and char grilled toast, evidently the traditional compliment of lightly toasted Pitta Bread was a step to far.

And so on to the true predator in this crime on food the main course. As the restaurant was adverting Mussel Madness and being a sucker for a good bowl of Moule Frites I gave the order for two bowls of mussels in cider. When the food arrived and we open our bowls the aroma was somewhat funky to say the least and after trying three it was decided that enough was enough and that we may well end up in some difficulty if we continued with the meal.

I have to say the one redeeming feature of the unfortunate experience was the Staff, genuinely concerned that our menu had been below par and were very good about the whole thing. Sorry Albany Tavern but I rate you a big fat 0 out of 10!
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Adrian Walker
2 Overall rating
Food 0 | Service 6 | Atmosphere 0 | Value for money 0
Monday, June 09, 2008