Coach & Horses, Part, ooh, about 87

I know I've written about the Coach & Horses before but hell, why wouldn't I? Owners Giles & Colette Webster have become great mates. It's not a gastropub but a fine pub - and I mean glorious old fashioned London boozer - with a fine dining room, which is always the better combination. The garden is a suntrap and a little oasis from the hassles of London. The staff are all lovely. And upstairs Henry keeps churning out the sort of food I'll eat til the cows come home / the buttons pop off my trousers. Whichever comes first. Probably the latter.

With a need / desire to break bread with Andy, my always-entertaining mate and editor at SAGA, the likely destination was always the Coach & Horses. It's his kind of place and his kind of menu as well, you see. When I discovered he was going to be at a meeting in Clerkenwell first... well, it felt like kismet.

Not that it all went in our favour, of course. The burger had sold out. And in retrospect I'm glad it had. Yes, it's a fine example of the beefy, bunny craft, but it's all too easy to settle for that time and time again. Being forced back to the menu meant Andy got to try Bath Chap - pig's cheek slow cooked into a melting savoury perfection - and I got another favourite combo: soup and a sandwich. The soup was Roasted Tomato, a pure, clean, garlic-tinged bowl of summer happiness. The sandwich was rare roast beef on heavily buttered and toasted homemade sourdough. With the sun shining, the tastebuds sighing, and the Timothy Taylor's flowing it was, by any stretch, a very good afternoon.