The Sun: Carshalton, London

The Sun

Date of Visit: 7^th July 2013

Ambience

This is a lovely local pub with a great beer garden.  As you enter the place, it seems small but it was chic.  You help yourself to menus but you get table service outside which is great.  Outdoor seating consisted of park style benches and smaller round tables both in the shade and in the sun.  We sat outside on a beautifully warm day for lunch.

Food

We had been recommended the food from some friends so had high hopes.  I was a little disappointed that they didn’t do their normal lunch menu as I had eyed up a steak baguette or sandwich on their website.  Instead they had a Sunday lunch menu which consisted of roasts and a few pub classics.  Due to the warm weather, we didn’t fancy a huge meal so between two of us, we opted for two starters and a main: a bread board, crab tart and a burger.

The bread selection was nice albeit the brown grained bread being a little hard but the best and most unusual part of it was the “dukkah” which was essentially mixed chopped nuts with a bit of herb/spice and the idea was to dip the  bread in balsamic vinegar then the nuts – it was different and quite tasty.  The hummus on the other hand was slightly bland with a big taste of spring onions but it did look home-made.

I found the crab tart to be very salty/flavoursome on its own but it was perfect when spread onto the bread.  We added bacon and cheese to the burger and it was good; it was served with a side of chips and two dips (mayonnaise and ketchup).  It was juicy which made it very messy to use your hands – we ended up using a knife and fork.

Service

The service was excellent, perhaps because we entered early at 12pm when it opened its doors.  It didn’t take long to order drinks and a tab was opened for us.  We trotted outside and within a few minutes our food order was taken.  We sat in the shade but the waitresses were quick to offer umbrellas for those who sat in the sun.

Summary

To summarise, it was a nice lazy lunch and a local-ish one so I would definitely recommend it on a nice sunny day.  No complaints at all but prices are not cheap and some may see it being over-priced for lunch but it’s fine for dinner.