The White Horse, Newburgh Street, Soho

The White Horse is a musical about the head waiter of an Austrain inn who falls hoplelessly in love with it's owner. The pictuesque specimen of the public house bearing this name down a little cobbled lane a stone's throw from lively Carnaby Street is one that any man would easily fall in love with. I must confess after dining over a hearty toad-in-the-hole at the establishment I did indeed fall in love with.

I returned one luncheon for a more bread, cheese and pickle orientated tryst. Unfortunately it all started to go wrong even as my luncheon companion and I nestled down in it's embracing dark wood pannelled depths on a particularly sunny day. The barmaid despite being possessed of an appropriately ample bosom seemed to harbour some kind of deep-seated hatred of all other members of her fair sex. My companion was rightly peeved at this.

When our order had finally been lodged with the kitchens a runner was immediately dispatched bearing the ill tidings that there remained no Stilton on the premises. Rather than throwing up my arms in horror I jovially invited them to marry the Cheddar with any other cheese of their choosing. My surprise at being told that there was no non-Cheddar cheese to be had was such that my eyebrows were able to remove several cobwebs from the ceiling; thankfully my upper lip remained entirely motionless.

The repast being delivered in due course, we found that there was adequate if monotonic cheese.Bread-to-butter ratio was within acceptable tolerances; apple presentation had a pleasing simplicity that is becoming fashionable nowadays. Unfortunately the pie had an anameic pallor that was genuinely frightened; we can only speculate that this was some manner of spectral haunting that one would usually delight in at such a pleasantly aged building.