The only place this critic will be watching the World Cup games, with proper pub food - BERITAJA

A bulldog wearing a tight vest adorned pinch the Union Jack and a smoking cigar hanging retired of the area of its rima glares down astatine my spot successful the eating room. Next to the dog, a faded people of Big Ben, and a commemorative sheet pinch the precocious Queen Elizabeth II smiling from 9 different decades. Curious about the much than 900 individual arms of each region successful England and Wales? There’s a elaborate poster connected the wall.

Robin Hood British Pub successful Sherman Oaks takes its British pridefulness seriously.

“We’re Brits, truthful we person to find the British pub,” says head Lydia Thelwell successful her salient Manchester accent. She started moving astatine the pub successful 1991, soon aft she moved to California. “I utilized to travel present arsenic a customer, and 1 of the bartenders was for illustration ‘why don’t you activity here?’ The remainder is history.”

The exterior of Robin Hood British Pub successful Sherman Oaks. To the near is the Friar Tuck Shoppe that stocks British sweets and snacks.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times )

The pub adjacent the area of Woodman Avenue and Burbank Boulevard has been a haven for Brits and English enthusiasts since owners Michael and Lorraine Williams opened the doors successful 1982. Both from London, the 2 met astatine Ye Olde King’s Head pub successful Santa Monica. The mates were regular fixtures astatine the pub until Michael died of COVID-19 successful 2021. With Michael gone, the 12-hour shifts were excessively overmuch for Lorraine, and longtime managers Thelwell, Ali Osment and Julia Eaton stepped successful to return complete regular operations.

Lorraine’s original recipes are still the stars of the lengthy menu. Steak and kidney pastry pinch a flaky crust that envelops chunks of steak and mineral-bright nuggets of liver successful a heavy brownish gravy. Cornish pasties brimming pinch crushed beef and potatoes. Dishes of shepherd’s pie blanketed successful smooth, buttery mashed potatoes flecked pinch cheddar cheese. Nubbly Scotch eggs pinch ramekins of saccharine and tangy Branston Pickle. Bowls of Thai curry crockery crowded pinch shrimp, scallops and clams.

“I don’t cognize wherever she sewage that Thai crockery look from, but it’s been connected the paper for arsenic agelong arsenic I could remember,” says Osment, who’s worked astatine the pub for 27 years.

An bid of food and chips from Robin Hood British Pub successful Sherman Oaks.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times )

The heavy fryer is the hardest-working instrumentality successful the kitchen. Whatever emerges from its bubbling lipid — wide rods of Icelandic cod; thick, bladed and curly fries; wings and bangers — is immaculately fried. And the personification manning the fryer since opening time is cook and room head Andres Mejia.

I’ve written astatine magnitude about my disdain for thick fries. At Robin Hood, you could petition shoestring fries, called Julienne fries connected the menu, pinch immoderate crockery that requires chips. Slender and golden, each fry is the prized crispy 1 astatine the bottommost of each different basket.

The bangers whitethorn beryllium the only point connected the paper that Mejia doesn’t make successful the kitchen. They’re manufactured locally from Jolly Good successful Santa Monica. Mejia dunks them successful the fryer until the casing is simply a heavy mahogany, taut and about splits. There’s a flimsy but noticeable threat earlier your weapon sinks into the soft, crumbly mediate of pork and panko breadcrumbs. Firmer than meatloaf. Looser than your mean Jimmy Dean link. Squat, swollen and glistening, they are the short kings of the sausage world.

An bid of 2 bangers and pickled thumps from Robin Hood British Pub successful Sherman Oaks.

(Jenn Harris / Los Angeles Times )

It’s astatine Robin Hood that I developed the British pub type of a “girl dinner,” an Internet word I still despise and truthful mention to arsenic “I-am-an-adult-and-have-free-will-dinner.” I bid 2 bangers pinch a broadside of nostril-singing mustard. A broadside of pickled beets. A broadside crockery pinch other bluish food dressing. A handbasket of Julienne fries. If I’m particularly ravenous, aliases if the repast needs to prolong a 90-minute shot (U.S. soccer) game, I’ll adhd sides of pickled onions and coleslaw. Balanced enough.

Though I could confidently return in installments for 2% of the yearly 3,000 plates of bangers and mash served astatine Robin Hood, it’s the food and chips that are about loved by the pub patrons. After crunching the numbers, Thelwell says the pub serves 10,000 orders of food and chips a year.

The food look for illustration they’ve been plucked from the aboveground of the moon, pinch a porous, shaggy batter that shatters. Each portion is served pinch a cup of Lorraine’s tartare sauce. It’s a chunky, tangy, pickle-forward concoction that Thelwell says is truthful popular, group bargain it by the deli cup.

I’ve go truthful enamored pinch the pub’s nutrient that I banal my freezer pinch stiff packages of bangers from the mini pub shop adjacent door. At Friar Tuck Shoppe, you’ll find shelves stocked pinch jars of mincemeat, Lion candy bars, cans of Heinz beans, Bird’s instant custard, digestives, stiff sausage rolls and bangers and the Union Jack connected cups, coasters and notepads.

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

At a clip erstwhile the ever-widening wealthiness gap successful Los Angeles feels for illustration a gaping hole, the pub’s name, an homage to the English folklore hero-outlaw, feels particularly fitting.

Thelwell says the pub plans to show each of the upcoming World Cup games. It’s already my go-to pub for Dodgers games and Premier League football. While galore pubs person an affiliation pinch a circumstantial team, Thelwell says Robin Hood is for everyone.

Maybe it’s the bangers, the otherworldly food and chips aliases the shoestring fries that person turned maine into 1 of Robin Hood’s merry women. Yes, the glorious heavy fryer, and a heavy appreciation for a unit truthful devoted to the pub that they’ve called it location for decades. As I chat pinch Thelwell and Osment during a caller lunch, they constituent retired Louisa. She’s going connected 32 years down the bar. My server, Veronica, is considered a newbie astatine 9 years. Eaton, the 3rd manager, has been connected the payroll since 1995.

“This pub intends truthful overmuch to truthful galore people,” says Thelwell. “People person friends here. They person location to come. So we each don’t consciousness truthful alone.”