Coach & Horses, Tenby

Garish – although oddly alluring – yellow exterior with an inverse U-shaped interior. The right side is mainly for dining whilst the left also had menus but also housed the cask and the topers. Quite quirky inside with a bit of character; pub carpet, black beams, whitewashed and bare stone walls. Two pumps with one on, a so-so Doom Bar (NBSS 2.5). It felt more pubby than a number of nearby outlets despite the menus saying ‘gastropub’ – a quick glance at their offering rather dispelled the ‘gastro’ part – it was just pub grub. Of interest was an old hand-crank till. Not bad, though could be essential with a bit of effort. 6.5

A traditional looking pub in the centre of town, it claims to be the oldest pub in Tenby although they admit that this cannot be proven! It is apparently though the oldest continuously open pub, even staying open during a number of refurbishments. Despite it’s traditional appearance, these days the right hand bar is very much a restaurant, with Thai food something of a speciality, and you are greeted with a “Please wait here to be seated” sign on the door. Decor wise there is carpet on the floor and plenty of black beams on the ceiling with old jugs hanging from them and more jugs on shelves. The walling is a mixture of exposed stone and rough white plasterwork whilst other embellishments were not only the usual horse brasses and such like, but also a number of Thai artefacts which made for an unusual contrast. A small stone fire-place with wood burning stove was off to one side and there were candles on all the tables. The bar to the left was perhaps a little cosier and this had a couple of TV’s with a BBC channel on, but the volume was off so this was not too intrusive. The menu consisted of a number of “pub grub” dishes such as lasagne, fish & chips, steak & ale pie, etc., and these were mostly priced around the £10 mark. As mentioned though, Thai dishes feature prominently, prepared by a Thai chef apparently, so we opted to try these. A Thai green chicken curry was really very good indeed, one of the best I have had with just the right level of spiciness and loads of flavour. Chicken with cashew nuts was also very good, and had we been staying longer in Tenby we may well have returned to try something else. The waitress/barmaid was absolutely brilliant, dealing with all drinks, food orders and waitressing on her own, running around like a whirlwind with never any appreciable delays to service. A pleasant change when many establishments can’t manage this even with two or three people on. The solitary beer on tap was Doom Bar, although a second pump appeared unused so there may on occasions be others. Ciders meanwhile were Strongbow and Stowford Press.