The Edgar Wallace, Temple, WC2

How on earth has this place escaped the radar for so long? Possibly as its never occurred to me to use ‘Temple' as a location search, but it's on my map now. By far the best choice of beers I have found anywhere near here; yesterday Adnams, Edgar's Pale Ale (by Nethergate), Brewers Gold, Cottage Swordfish, Rebellion Smuggler, Banks&Taylor Shefford bitter, 1648 Hop Pocket, Nethergate Augustinian, and all well kept. Plenty of old pumpclips around the bar – always a good sign of willingness from the pub to provide changing & interesting ales. Food looked good too & if I hadn't been moving on I could easily have been tempted by the day's special of seared swordfish sarnie with pancetta, tartare, salad, & skin-on chips (£8.50), or chicken & chorizo skewers with jalapeno coleslaw from the typed menu (£5). Very friendly guv'nor who chatted about the beers & brewing & suggested reading microbrewers' handbook, Ted Bruning. A real shame that part of the pub's appeal in a ‘hidden' location also contributed to a failed recent attempt to support weekend opening – apparently they'll give it another go in the summer.

An interesting traditional pub, with an array of memorabilia around all the walls and ceilings covered in pump clips and beer mats. Eight ales on chrome handpumps on our visit. We tried a couple of halves, which were Crouch Vale Brewers Gold and their Edgar Wallace. Both beers were in fine fettle, the downside was they cost £4.60. The pub is only open Mon - Fri.

I paid one of my regular visits to this pub on a Friday lunchtime recently. It remains a Mecca for real ale enthusiasts. It does have one downside though - they allow tables to be reserved at lunchtimes, and when I was in all but the two tables in the middle of the downstairs room were reserved, as well as about half in the small upstairs room. But we were in early enough to bag one of the unreserved tables upstairs, and as we planned to eat were not deterred by the fact that all the upstairs tables were laid for diners. I reckon it would have been standing room only by 12.30, which can be galling when you can see several unoccupied, but reserved tables. On the plus side however, there are signs on tables saying that they don't allow job interviews to be conducted here and that it is a pub and not to be used as an office. The upstairs room had a similar sort of (tobacco-themed) decor as downstairs, but I did spot a first for me here - a coin operated Tampax dispenser behind the bar counter, which I can only assume to be a bizarre piece of decor. Even Antic pubs don't have them as decorative features! This remains a great pub but, at least on weekday lunchtimes, it seems to be more of a restaurant than a pub. Worth a visit nonetheless.

Another great pub on my "Get off at Temple" crawl. Lots of downstairs seating including a comfortable sofa. There's another room upstairs but I've rarely been up there as it's just seating. It's nice and peaceful in here until about 5:30 when it gets rammed. Lots of people drinking outside on warm days. Seven handpumps serving changing guests on 5 of them with a Crouch Vale beer and Nethergate Edgars Pale as the house beers. Buy pints when in here as the price of 2 halves is quite a bit more than a pint.