The Old Thameside Inn, Southwark, SE1

This is an uber touristy place on the river next to the replica of the Golden Hinde. This one's selling point is its riverside location with plenty of outside seating, which works well on a warm summer evening, but perhaps not so well during the winter. As you enter the pub you see a largish area at the back which is for diners, with full table service advertised. Being a Nicholson's (M&B) ub there is a reasonable selection of real ale on, but of course not cheap in this part of the world. They had on Doom Bar, Proper Job, Tribute, Nicholson's Pale, and my half of Wild Beer Bibble was £2.80 a half. This place is actually rather nice if you can bag a table on the verandah overlooking the river.

marginally better than the Anchor nearby but equally corporate and aimed at trapping those who don’t know better. Inside it largely feels like a McPub Fast Food experience for tourists whereas outside has the added bonus of groups of French schoolkids giving you a headache. The beer is good, though at a hefty price.

A large and expansive Nicholson’s pub on the banks of The Thames, it offers great views of many of the city’s most well-known buildings including the Gherkin and the Cheese Grater as well as being immediately next to the Golden Hinde, the replica of the original ship that circumnavigated the globe captained by Sir Francis Drake. There’s a good sized decking area alongside the ship, as well as further seating on a river side terrace at the front of the pub. All in all, a prime spot. Internally it’s split over a couple of levels although we did not investigate the downstairs cellar bar on our visit. Décor wise it’s quite traditional with a wood strip floor, some exposed stone walling and a few beams on the ceiling as well as chunky timber supports. Plenty of flower pots on the window sill added a splash of colour. A couple of TV screens were showing a sports channel, but the volume was off so this was not too intrusive. There was some banquet seating around the perimeter, but mostly it was just tables and chairs. Service at the bar was fast and efficient. Beers on tap were London Pride, Pedigree, Timothy Taylor Landlord, Nicholson’s Pale Ale, Great Heck Christopher and Young’s Hummingbird. Ciders meanwhile were Weston’s Caple which is a new one on me and Mortimer’s Orchard.

All the advantages of this pub are in the location. It relies on passing trade. Repeat customers would likely go there because of the location by the river, with balconies overlooking the Thames. If you stick to ordering a drink from a bottle and going back to your table you may never suffer from the poor service on offer. However, if you need anything more you may come a cropper. On a very busy day like today, you may find that staff mill about behind the bar, taking their time, chatting before getting to the crowds waiting to order, with their manager shouting at them to serve customers. You may find that the 'Mulled Cider' they serve is warm, not hot, and the taste is not unlike dishwater. Sadly when I went back to apologetically let them know that it was pretty poor I was told exactly WHY it was so poor when the manager was trying to justify its quality... in the manager's words: "We get the cider in a bag (!), and in the morning put it on the heat -[raises eyebrows] MULL it, and then dish it out over the day. You can't blame us for it being poor." Well, I would suggest I can blame you for buying cider by the bag. Make the mulled cider OR choose a decent product. For £4.95 a hit it was p*ss poor. I do not use this word lightly, it is an accurate description of the product. The alcohol had evaporated away a while back (a lesson in making mulled alcoholic drinks: HEAT+ALCOHOL+OPEN LID+ TIME= EVAPORATION OF ALCOHOL). See http://tinyurl.com/gp7qm34: after 2.5 hours of mulling you are left with 5% of the original alcohol content. As the alcohol content was originally 4%, by the time I got there it would have been 0.2%. So it seems I was right. In order to avoid this you need to be making it as you go along, chucking it out if it is not served within the hour, or topping it up with a spirit. Brandy is a popular choice for this purpose. My gripe is not just with the quality of the drinks, the inadequate expertise of the management, the inattentive staff OR the way he admonished his staff for their inadequacies in front of customers... the worst was making me feel as small as possible for letting him know that he could improve the experience offered. Yes, he replaced it with another (less expensive) drink at my suggestion, but made it abundantly clear that he was doing me a HUGE favour and that he thought I was out of order. "You don't like it, that's why you brought it back. THAT's not a valid complaint." If you don't want to replace it don't do it. I was polite and meek, apologising for bringing it back and suggesting it might help. But don't revel in your own perceived moral superiority for giving in to replacing a poor drink while belittling the request. It defeats the object of offering the replacement drink, which I would have thought would be to leave the customer feeling as though their money was not wasted. The worst of it was that while leaving I saw (very clearly) the same manager pouring a (returned? abandoned?) glass of wine INTO the mulled cider pot. So glad we returned it. What else might be in there?! The food (a burger) that one of our party had was enjoyable. As were the rest of the drinks (all from bottles).