The Sans Pareil, Rochester

Food is heavily advertised outside this pub and as I approached I feared that it had fallen prey to a restaurateur. My fears were compounded by the French name of Sans Pareil (without equal) as I did not know that this was the name of a well known steam locomotive built in the 1820s. There is a restaurant in this pub, but it is at the rear and separate from the U-shaped bar area that is stocked with standard draught products along with three hand pumps. One of these hand pumps was unused and the Directors was off so only Courage Best was available. I plumped for the Guinness which was well served by a polite member of staff. The bar is bookended by a plasma screen on either side wall and the racing at Ascot was being shown on both. Annoyingly there was some background music competing with the commentary, but this was escapable by moving to the left hand side of the pub. Around to the rear right of the bar there is a dartboard and an exit to a nice beer garden complete with some covered seating, a rockery and a vegetable patch. There is some more outside seating at the front of the pub, but this is facing a busy road and next to the car park. This pub certainly exceeded my expectations based on the exterior and my only real complaint would be the excessive foul language from some of the locals that were propping up the bar. I’d still have no problem in returning here in the future.