Picture of Horseshoe Inn, SE1 3QP

Historical version 14 of Horseshoe Inn, SE1 3QP (view current version)

Small pub with real ale and Mongolian food near Guy's Hospital and London Bridge Station. The decor inside is heavily focused on bare wood, and the interior is broken up by wooden screens with glass panes. There's a dartboard to the right of the bar.

Kake first visited on a Sunday afternoon in May 2009. When I arrived a little before 5pm there were just a couple of other customers in. Music was playing; when I arrived it was relatively quiet and sounded sort of Portishead-like. It got more bizarre, and louder, while I was there. On another visit on a Friday early evening in November 2011, tables were at a premium (not helped by a large reserved area) but there was standing room at the bar, and a little hovering eventually gained us somewhere to sit.

The real ales available in May 2009 were Brakspears Bitter, London Pride, and Davenport Bee-Zone (£1.60/half). Blackboards outside and behind the bar advertised other ales coming soon (Golden Hare, Everards Sundance, Hopback Crop Circle). In November 2011, the ales were Jennings Cumberland (£3.25/pint), Brakspear Bitter, and Brakspear Oxford Gold.

As of May 2009, food is served noon-9pm Mon-Sat and noon-6pm Sun. As well as a standard pub food menu, they also have a Mongolian menu photo which is available every day.

Kake, bob, Martin, Northern Steve, and Phil tried the Mongolian food on a Thursday evening visit in June 2009. Kake felt that the best of the dishes we tried was the fried beef pancakes (£5) photo; a little greasy, but plenty of flavour. Martin was also very pleased with these. Steamed beef dumplings (£5) photo were promising, but unfortunately some of them were very dried out on the top, possibly due to being left uncovered for too long before cooking. Special cooked tea with pelmeni (£5.50) photo turned out to be a kind of milky soup containing white rice and beef dumplings (pelmeni). The soup/tea had a pleasingly subtle flavour. The dumplings were a little hard to eat, since they were too big to eat in one bite, and as they were floating in the soup it was quite difficult to cut pieces off with a spoon. Perhaps there's some special technique to it. bob thought the beef noodles (£5) photo were really good, and the noodles probably home-made.

There's a bookable function room upstairs; it's quite plain but includes the roof terrace, which is nice.

Accessibility: Small step (more of a ridge) to get in. Step-free to the bar, at least some of the seating area, and the ladies' toilets, but didn't check the gents'.

See also:

Last visited by Kake, bob, et al., November 2011. Opening times taken from advert in the Oct/Nov 2008 London Drinker magazine. Food times taken from menu in pub, May 2009.
OS X co-ord: 533080 OS Y co-ord: 179915 (Latitude: 51.501999 Longitude: -0.082425)
This is version 14 (as of 2013-05-10 07:22:22). View current version. List all versions.