The White Horse, Richmond, UK

The White Horse pub in Richmond was the next destination visited to elude the Jonas storm-soaked streets of London. A classy, family-friendly gastropub, The White Horse offers an excellent foodie alternative to the more traditional pub, The Red Cow, around the corner.

Having chosen to dine here on a Thursday evening, the vibe was lively as the weekly pub quiz was about to take place. Despite being more on the upmarket end of the pub spectrum, The White Horse boasts an excellent entertainment schedule throughout the week including the pub quiz, an open mic night and important sporting occasions (for example, it will be showing the upcoming England Six Nations Rugby games).

We were seated in a quieter corner of the restaurant because of the impending pub quiz and proceeded to peruse the menu, which was extensive and featured classic pub dishes. The cool thing about the menu, however, was that it was presented to us attached to comic books and old cartoon annuals. Ours were Spongebob Squarepants and Pokemon annuals – an enjoyable throwback to my E-number fuelled childhood and an entertaining touch for young and old!

Now for the food. We started with the salt and pepper squid. Suitably salty and peppery, this was a great start to the meal with a light lemon mayonnaise that can make even the mayonnaise doubters of the world (me) reconsider. Thankfully there were also only a few full squid that popped up in the bowl, which is a positive for me since personally I prefer to eat only the squid rings. I could talk (or write) for many hours about the ignorance of human carnivores in understanding and accepting where their food comes from and the gap in education in this situation but, alas, I shall save this for another time. All this to say that I, too, am a culprit of denying that my food was once a living being.

On a lighter note, our equally carnivorous main course of steak and chips was excellent. As rare as requested, the meat was tender and juicy and the hand cut chips were everything that one celebrates about British pub food. Combined with a delectable mushroom sauce and a bottle of Malbec, the main course was a success and was very nicely presented without being too annoyingly fancy for such a classic dish.

For dessert, we were recommended the sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel ice cream, which presented a conundrum since I love sticky toffee pudding but haven’t come around to the salted caramel hype. With a leap of faith, we took the recommendation and it paid off in spades. The sticky toffee pudding (apologies for the repetition of this long dessert name but the abbreviation to STP made it sound like something one wouldn’t be inclined to consume for dessert) was sticky but not too heavy and – shock horror – the salted caramel ice cream was a welcome addition. I will eat my words. And more salted caramel ice cream as long as it comes attached to a sticky toffee pudding.

All in all, a lively but still tasteful pub atmosphere was accompanied by a wonderful meal featuring some poor sea creatures (RIP) and excellent British classics. The only other thing I will mention is that the dessert wine is only sold by the bottle, so be warned that when you want to be fancy you may also get a little sloppy, but this will probably only add to your pub quiz experience.

http://www.whitehorserichmond.co.uk