Randomness Guide to London Menu

Bar/pub/gastropub on Green Lanes in Harringay.

Has three handpumps, and Casque Mark accreditation. Courage Directors is the regular beer, and they have one or two guests as well; in June 2008 the guest was Spitfire (£2.85/pint) and they had Tom Fool marked as "coming soon".

The decor is reasonably smart; glass jars of lemons and herbs and stuff are on display, much of the seating is provided by pale wood tables and upright chairs, and the floor is stripped boards. Although the space is quite long and narrow, with quite a lot of room being taken up by the bar, mirrors along one wall make it feel a bit more spacious. There's a nice big sofa near the large front windows. Free newspapers are available for customers to read (Daily Mail, Independent, Guardian as of June 2008).

According to a blackboard outside (June 2008), they do a Sunday carvery for £9, with a choice of roast meat or veg option. The main menu is served noon-9:30pm Mon-Sat and 6pm-9:30pm Sun, with the addition of various steaks 6pm-9:30pm Tue-Sun and sandwiches noon-5pm Mon-Sat. Basically, food is available all day but the details change.

Kake visited on a Tuesday late lunchtime in June 2008. There was one other customer sitting at the bar when I got in, working his way through a bottle of wine and listening to his iPod, and a couple more arrived one by one while I was there. Staff were friendly enough. I tried the salmon with spinach and crushed new potatoes (£8). It was pretty good, and a decent price. I really liked the potatoes, and the salmon was fine, with a nice crust on one side without being overcooked (I'd have preferred it a bit rarer but that's just personal preference - it was fine). Unfortunately the spinach was a little gritty.

There's a semi-open kitchen at the back - if you're sitting in the right place you can watch the chefs through a little window. While I was there, I saw one preparing for the evening by mashing some potatoes with a hand-held mouli, which in contrast to the gritty spinach suggests good attention to detail (far too many places do this electrically).

Background music was pretty much exclusively from the last half of the '80s; Madonna, a-ha, Bananarama, Bros, Yazz. It wasn't too loud, but since I wasn't too keen on this stuff the first time around I didn't stay for a second pint - I would have, otherwise, since the sofa was nice and there was nothing else wrong with the place.

There's some kind of smoking area (covered, according to Fancyapint) out the back, but I didn't investigate it.

See also:

• Beer In The Evening comments
• Fancyapint review
• Ladder Life writeup
• Qype comments