The Royal Oak, Woking

A long-standing roadside inn which has been given the full 'farmhouse eatery' makeover. Lots of rough-hewn beams, country wallpaper and exposed brickwork. Despite the focus on eating, which is of the 'take a table number and order at the bar' variety, there is plenty of room for drinkers in the jumbled collection of seating areas. Regular draught ales are IPA, Abbot and TEA, plus a guest which was from Redemption at time of visit. The beer was in fair, if not great, condition but the service was less so, with two bored waitresses taking it in turn to ignore the bar.

A Greene King food orientated pub,multiroomed with lots of wooden beams and exposed joists and a mix of wood and carpeted flooring.Every table I saw of which there are many came complete with its own menu even the solitary tall table presumably for drinking purposes.The menu itself was a fairly straight forward affair with most items under £10.00 with only various steaks and Roasts breaching that threshold,the menu was headed The Sunday Roast menu and asw my visit was on a Sunday there may well be a different one for the rest of the week. To more important things, on the bar were four hand pumps with three in operation, being Greene King owned I was little suprised to see GK IPA and Abbott occuping two of them, the third and my choice was given over to local brewery Hogs Back Tea,it was in very good condition and a pleasant pint.When I first entered the pub I detected a slight but offputting smell and caught a whiff of it every now and then in different areas of the pub, no Idea what or where it was coming from and I found it rather off putting. So its a foody pub with a decent interior but not really a drinkers pub although there is no problem at all if thats what you want to do, I probably won't be again though.

Official site of the Royal Oak, contains menus and wine list - www.royaloak-pub-pirbright.co.uk

Official site of the Royal Oak, contains menus and wine list - www.royaloak-pub-pirbright.co.uk