The Masons Arms, Battersea Park Road, SW8 4BT

Battersea is a bit short of everything really, it’s like a wasteland compared with North London. Since I moved here I’ve suddenly gone all middle aged. It’s all Sunday Roasts and Jazz territory. I do try and sound less negative but it creeps up on me.

Pub and bar density isn’t great, attempting a pub crawl would be a short but expensive exercise. Everywhere seems to look the same, in an eerily Stepford pub fashion. The Masons Arms is the prototype for this: a sizable bar and kitchen opposite Battersea Park train station with a gastropub menu and a small outside terrace. So far so good, but expensive, almost eye wateringly expensive in fact. It would seem they may not have realised that this isn’t the Kings Road. Averaging about £14 per main course is a little steep for pub food, even if it is slightly better than average pub food. Sausage and mash shouldn’t cost more than a tenner really now should it? Or have I just got a bit old?
They insist on charging the best part of £6 for a glass of wine. Soft drinks are pricey too.

Finance and budgetary concerns aside, it does have some good points. As a place to sit on giant sofas on a winters night by the fire and drink with friends the Masons scores well. The fish cakes are amongst the best pub fish cakes, I’m an experienced fish cake eater I should know. Occasionally on Friday night lots of people cram in (where they all come from I’ve quite figured out) and a DJ appears, it almost could be described as lively.

But no, these are good things indeed, but hardly too much to ask for. It’s almost as if the licensing department at Wandsworth Council have a template which gets issued to any prospective landlord, “comply with this please or no go”. The Lighthouse, the Price Albert, The Prince of Wales etc etc. They are all the same. I can’t even remember which one is which.

There is a boring homogeneity in this part of London which I don’t see elsewhere. London is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world so why is this little patch of South London so uniform? Can we do something different soon please?

Le Pot Lyonnais, Queenstown Road, Battersea SW11

Gorb has decided to come out of retirement. Life has moved on. I’ve done some travelling, changed jobs and moved south of the river. Mr Gorb is still around but I no longer care what he thinks of my spelling, such is life. Rest assured the photography will still be bad.

And so we begin.

Inspiration came from a bad trip to Le Pot Lyonnais. There had been many previous happy and pleasant trips to this little piece of France in Queenstown Road, Battersea. It exists in a void, there isn’t much to eat on Queenstown Road. When I moved to the area I clearly wasn’t thinking straight, however, make the best of what’s in front of you and proceed blindly on.

Le Pot Lyonnais is a French bistro, it’s even run and staffed by real French people, with a menu full of moules, steak baguettes and pomme frites and a wine list of well chosen French wines. There are battered sofas, marble tables and dark wood everywhere. The owner lounges about in Gallic fashion with his red wine and gauloise on the go. The whole place is rather relaxed and sort of Parisian without to much hard work.

We turned up on a Friday night and the waitress managed to throw a pint of larger over Mr Gorb, not just spilt a bit, she actually couldn’t have done better if she tried. Quite spectacular really. We remain relatively good humoured and she clears up, he runs home to change, probably a 20 minute mission. I ask them to hold our food, it appears anyway, I send it back. No one apologises or offers me a drink while I wait (I’ve already got one but that’s not the point). He reappears eventually but the food then takes 20 mins to reappear. We eat and ask for the bill, we pay and leave. Now, I wouldn’t want to seem overly precious but they might have made a bit of an effort, knocked something off the bill or thrown in a coffee or something.

I could blame it on the French and their attitudes. What surprised me most was I didn’t complain. Not a peep. At best, I might have given the impression of being slightly miffed which is rather unlike me. Perhaps I have been living amongst the English for too long. Perhaps it’s nothing to do with stereotypes and I should just not go there anymore.