Where to observe the World Cup video games in Los Angeles with pub meals

A bulldog sporting a good vest adorned with the Union Jack and a smoking cigar hanging out of the nook of its mouth glares down at my seat within the eating room. Next to the canine, a pale print of Big Ben, and a commemorative plate with the late Queen Elizabeth II smiling from 9 completely different many years. Curious concerning the greater than 900 private arms of each county in England and Wales? There’s an in depth poster on the wall.

Robin Hood British Pub in Sherman Oaks takes its British satisfaction severely.

“We’re Brits, so we have to find the British pub,” says supervisor Lydia Thelwell in her distinguished Manchester accent. She began working on the pub in 1991, shortly after she moved to California. “I used to come here as a customer, and one of the bartenders was like ‘why don’t you work here?’ The rest is history.”

The pub close to the nook of Woodman Avenue and Burbank Boulevard has been a haven for Brits and English lovers since house owners Michael and Lorraine Williams opened the doorways in 1982. Both from London, the 2 met at Ye Olde King’s Head pub in Santa Monica. The couple had been common fixtures on the pub till Michael died of COVID-19 in 2021. With Michael gone, the 12-hour shifts had been an excessive amount of for Lorraine, and longtime managers Thelwell, Ali Osment and Julia Eaton stepped in to take over day by day operations.

Lorraine’s unique recipes are nonetheless the celebs of the prolonged menu. Steak and kidney pie with a flaky crust that envelops chunks of steak and mineral-bright nuggets of liver in a deep brown gravy. Cornish pasties brimming with floor beef and potatoes. Dishes of shepherd’s pie blanketed in easy, buttery mashed potatoes flecked with cheddar cheese. Nubbly Scotch eggs with ramekins of candy and tangy Branston Pickle. Bowls of Thai curry soup crowded with shrimp, scallops and clams.

“I don’t know where she got that Thai soup recipe from, but it’s been on the menu for as long as I can remember,” says Osment, who’s labored on the pub for 27 years.

The deep fryer is the hardest-working tools within the kitchen. Whatever emerges from its effervescent oil — broad rods of Icelandic cod; thick, skinny and curly fries; wings and bangers — is immaculately fried. And the particular person manning the fryer since opening day is chef and kitchen supervisor Andres Mejia.

I’ve written at size about my disdain for thick fries. At Robin Hood, you possibly can request shoestring fries, known as Julienne fries on the menu, with any dish that requires chips. Slender and golden, every fry is the prized crispy one on the backside of each different basket.

The bangers will be the solely merchandise on the menu that Mejia doesn’t make within the kitchen. They’re manufactured regionally from Jolly Good in Santa Monica. Mejia dunks them within the fryer till the casing is a deep mahogany, taut and almost splits. There’s a slight however noticeable snap earlier than your knife sinks into the gentle, crumbly center of pork and panko breadcrumbs. Firmer than meatloaf. Looser than your common Jimmy Dean hyperlink. Squat, swollen and glistening, they’re the brief kings of the sausage world.

It’s at Robin Hood that I developed the British pub model of a “girl dinner,” an Internet time period I nonetheless despise and due to this fact confer with as “I-am-an-adult-and-have-free-will-dinner.” I order two bangers with a facet of nostril-singing mustard. A facet of pickled beets. A facet salad with further blue cheese dressing. A basket of Julienne fries. If I’m particularly ravenous, or if the meal must maintain a 90-minute soccer (U.S. soccer) sport, I’ll add sides of pickled onions and coleslaw. Balanced sufficient.

Though I can confidently take credit score for two% of the annual 3,000 plates of bangers and mash served at Robin Hood, it’s the fish and chips which are most cherished by the pub patrons. After crunching the numbers, Thelwell says the pub serves 10,000 orders of fish and chips a yr.

The fish appear to be they’ve been plucked from the floor of the moon, with a porous, shaggy batter that shatters. Each piece is served with a cup of Lorraine’s tartare sauce. It’s a chunky, tangy, pickle-forward concoction that Thelwell says is so in style, individuals purchase it by the deli cup.

I’ve develop into so enamored with the pub’s meals that I inventory my freezer with frozen packages of bangers from the small pub store subsequent door. At Friar Tuck Shoppe, you’ll discover cabinets stocked with jars of mincemeat, Lion sweet bars, cans of Heinz beans, Bird’s prompt custard, digestives, frozen sausage rolls and bangers and the Union Jack on cups, coasters and notepads.

“She named the shop the Friar Tuck Shoppe because he was part of Robin Hood’s band,” says Osment. “I’m not sure why they chose Robin Hood. Maybe because it’s so quintessentially British.”

At a time when the ever-widening wealth hole in Los Angeles seems like a gaping gap, the pub’s title, an homage to the English folklore hero-outlaw, feels particularly becoming.

Thelwell says the pub plans to show all of the upcoming World Cup games. It’s already my go-to pub for Dodgers games and Premier League football. While many pubs have an affiliation with a specific team, Thelwell says Robin Hood is for everyone.

Maybe it’s the bangers, the otherworldly fish and chips or the shoestring fries that have turned me into one of Robin Hood’s merry women. Yes, the glorious deep fryer, and a deep appreciation for a staff so devoted to the pub that they’ve called it home for decades. As I chat with Thelwell and Osment during a recent lunch, they point out Louisa. She’s going on 32 years behind the bar. My server, Veronica, is considered a newbie at nine years. Eaton, the third manager, has been on the payroll since 1995.

“This pub means so much to so many people,” says Thelwell. “People have friends here. They have somewhere to come. So we all don’t feel so alone.”