Sunday lunch at The Keystone

The Keystone Sunday roast

I was heading for Debenhams, or maybe the Thai restaurant in Jeffries Passage, until I remembered The Keystone did a Sunday roast. I decided to give it a try. A big mistake.

I expected The Keystone to be packed. It wasn’t, it was almost empty. I should have taken that as a sign.

Shoulder of pork slow roasted for ten hours sounded delicious. It was off. As was the beef. All that was left was nut roast or turkey. I should have walked out. I decided to stay. A big mistake.

I ordered turkey. The beer I ordered was also off.

Service at The Keystone is bad at the best of times. Today was no exception. A long wait before my meal arrived. Was it worth the wait? No.

The turkey looked disgusting. My eyes did not deceive me, it was disgusting. The broccoli was overcooked, the carrots were undercooked, as were the parsnips. I do not know what was wrong with the potatoes, maybe going bad, but they tasted horrible.

The entire meal was disgusting, and although I was hungry, I could not eat it and ended leaving most of it.

This was worse than Debenhams on a bad day and very poor compared with Debenhams on a good day, and no where comparable with The Foresters near Church Crookham who do an excellent carvery on a Sunday.

A shame as usually the food at The Keystone is very good.

Still feeling hungry, I wandered round to Debenhams for afternoon tea.

Eden People at The Keystone

Eden People meet irregularly at The Keystone, tonight was one of those evenings.

I had planned on being at the Keystone this evening, but almost went home, as was very tired, but decided to stay.

Quite well attended, lovely examples of synchronicity.

I was chatting with Michelle, who I had never met before. I do not know why, but we were chatting about Cornish Yarg (a lovely cheese from Cornwall) and Neals Yard in Covent Garden (where I said I was the week before for dinner at Food for Thought and the week before that lunch at Food for Thought).

Her friend ordered something to eat. Michelle ask me was Cornish Yarg wrapped in green leaves. I said yes, nettles. I asked why did she ask? On her friend’s plate was Cornish Yarg!

Philippa arrived and ordered soup. She said it was very good. Chestnut and mushroom. I said no, chestnut mushroom soup.

For some reason she mentioned Neals yard in Covent Garden.

I told her of the impossibility of finding NeverSeconds, and finally finding a copy in Waterstone’s in Guildford.

A hair, I have a hair in my soup, a long hair, but it is not mine.

I explained Martha Payne ranked her meals. One of the rankings was on the number of hairs, because once she found a long hair and it was not hers.

Eden People will next be at The Keystone for a Christmas special evening 11 December 2012.

The Keystone is a pub in Guildford, bottom of the High Street, over the bridge and behind St Nicholas Church.

Dinner at The Keystone

Excellent dinner at The Keystone.

A choice of three soups, usually only one.

I picked chestnut mushroom soup. I though it was chestnuts and mushroom soup. I was corrected. It was delicious. Nothing like mushroom soup.

Followed by fish cakes and greenery. This too was delicious.

I was pleased to note the artwork on the walls has at long last changed as it had been there since the summer. Not impressed. Photos behind glass, reflections off the glass. Most of the photos are black, with a little light in the centre. I guess someone thought they were being ‘artistic’.

The Keystone is a pub in Guildford, bottom of the High Street, over the bridge and behind St Nicholas Church.

Dinner at The Keystone

two fish cakes and greenery

A wet miserable day all day in Guildford. I would rather not be out, but that evening I was going to The e-book debate at the Electric Theatre, one of the events of the Guildford Book Festival.

The Keystone was only a few minutes walk away, and they serve good food.

But the service is slow, I began to wonder had I made the right choice, should I have come in earlier, when my dinner was served.

Two home-made fish cakes with a little greenery on the plate. It was delicious.

The Keystone gets bad reviews on TripAdvisor. These are fake reviews, trolls who have nothing better to do, and TripAdvisor brings itself into disrepute by not dealing with them.

Mixed bag of people in The Keystone.

The one thing I did not like, the same artwork on the wall as the summer.

Hopefully next year The Keystone will get their act together and put on some events for the Guildford Book Festival, or better still, start a fringe book festival.

As I left I spoke to an attractive female sat at the bar reading a book by Harlan Coben (as I pointed out once you have read one, you have read them all). From what she was reading I suggested she might like A Quiet Belief in Angels by R J Ellory.

Synchronicity: The Keystone has a bookshelf of books to borrow. Thinking about it, I feel sure last time I looked A Quiet Belief in Angels was one of those sitting there.

Lunch at The Keystone

fish cakes with a little greenery

wall mural dog on a skateboard

It was a pleasant day. I decided lunch at The Keystone was in order as I could sit outside in their back courtyard overlooking St Nicolas Church.

I was though a little concerned as what to expect as I had been reading bad reports on TripAdvisor. I had not eaten there since last year. The food had always been good. Had they changed hands?

I asked. No, they said, same owners.

I mentioned the bad reviews. They were aware and very concerned. They thought maybe rival pubs doing them down.

Maybe, but from the tone, I suspect trolls.

I ordered fish cakes and a half a pint of Alton Pride.

The fish cakes were delicious, served with a little greenery, with something on it, possibly olive oil.

The food is freshly prepared, hence sometimes a wait. Not like most pubs, white chiller van hotted up.

I ate outside where it was pleasantly quiet.

I wish though they would make the back non-smoking. Smokers can always sit out the front, and enjoy the traffic fumes.

Keystone has books to borrow. I have in the past donated books. The walls are used as exhibition space for artists. I did not think much of what was on display. Eden People use it for evening meetings. I think the next meeting is sometime towards the end of July.

The last few years the Guildford Book Festival has been an unmitigated disaster. I am hoping that this year The Keystone get their act together and run an alternative book festival. They expressed an interest last year, but nothing came of it.

I thought of spending the afternoon in Godalming, but the bus driver told me Godalming was closed due to Olympic torch relay, and so I remained in Guildford.

Later I saw the Olympic torch relay in Guildford.

Guildford farmers market followed by a relaxing afternoon at The Keystone

A very hot day.

I was in my garden before 10am cutting the grass and watering the plants. Gone 10am and it was hot.

A bath and breakfast and farmers market in Guildford for lunch.

It was too hot to wander around around the farmers market. I bought more than I had intended which was a pain as too hot to carry anything. I needed a donkey!

Wholemeal bread, fig and blueberry flapjacks off Celtic Bakers. A couple of little cucumber, a courgette, and summer squash var Harlequin off a fruit and vegetable stall. Broad beans, potatoes var Anya, tomatoes and radishes var Easter Egg off Secretts farm. Sausages for dinner. I had tried earlier smoked mackerel which was delicious off Sussex Smokers, so I went back and bought some. Beeswax polish. Plums.

I found what I was hoping to find, Discovery apples, the first of the season. They had started picking last week. Two weeks earlier than usual. [see Shifting seasons]

Crass stupidity to have held a farmers market on the last Saturday of July, only three days before the market on Tuesday. It would have made more sense to have held it midway between two Tuesday markets.

Still no sign of the results from the surveys carried out at the market in May. [see Guildford farmers market May 2011]

One guy keeled over (I assume from the heat) and half demolished a market stall.

By now I want to jump in the river. It was hot with hazy sun, now the sun is coming out.

I wend my way down the hill, over the river to The Keystone. I am just in time to catch the kitchen before it closes at 3pm. I order their excellent watercress soup and spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the terrace and reading The Pilgimage. I leave behind a copy of The Zahir. Both books by Paulo Coelho. Too hot to move.

Guildford farmers market is in the High Street, first Tuesday of the month.

The Keystone is bottom of the High Street, over the bridge, back of St Nicolas Church.

Keystone Spirit – Eden People at The Keystone

Sometimes, certain of God’s blessings arrive by shattering all the windows. — Paulo Coelho

Half a dozen Eden People gathered in the corner in The Keystone, some still drying out from Guilfest the previous wet and soggy weekend. Interesting conversation.

Love Wins by Rob Bell. Highly recomended! Controversial? Would a loving God choose a select few to go the heaven and condemn the vast majority to all eternity in hell? Is that what Christianity is about, a select few are transferred somewhere else? Turn or burn, is that the story? Rob Bell says no! Old Testament prophets talked of an age to come, an age of plenty, of grapes, of wine, an age of peace, swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks. The onus is on us to bring it about, we must end injustice, inequality, poverty, environmental degradation. If Love Wins offends a few Christian fundamentalists and their distortion of Scripture, then no bad thing. Love Wins was on special offer in Triangle.

Read Love Wins, but read The Shack first.

Concern was raised that Triangle, a Christian bookshop cum tea shop in Farnborough, is in financial difficulty and could go under. A Christian bookshop in nearby Aldershot has recently closed (a New Age shop in the last week). To rely on donations, other than a special appeal, is not sustainable. What can be done? The food leaves much to be desired. Look at Iydea and Infinity Foods cafe in North Laine, Brighton, Food For Thought, Neal Street, Covent Garden in London. Overstocked and too much tat. Listen to readers not publishers. Not a very friendly atmosphere. What are the aims? Poor use made of social media, especially facebook. Encourage churches to post their events on the facebook wall, leave their flyers and posters in Triangle. Maybe it should be a religious or spiritual centre, but this could be unpopular and maybe alienate narrow-minded Christians who think they have a monopoly on faith. In the long-term needs to move as in a poor location.

Previous two weeks Catherine Ferguson had given her summer talks on King James Bible and George Abbot at St Nicolas (where George Abbot was baptised). Much appreciated, as was her summer talks last year on El Camino de Santiago.

At its peak, a million pilgrims a year walked El Camino de Santiago. By modern times this had dwindled to a few half dozen a year but it was still possible to follow the route using a medieval guide book. Paulo Coelho was obliged to walk the route as a penance (and many of his books are inspired by or set along the route). He wrote his account of walking El Camino de Santiago in The Pilgrimage. Following publication of The Pilgrimage in the mid-1980s saw an exponential rise in the number of pilgrims, peaking in Holy or Jubilee Years when St James Day falls on a Sunday, as it did last year.

Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho is well known in Latin America, Europe (especially Eastern Europe), Russia, but little known in England. It was therefore a pleasant surprise to find of the half a dozen present, two not only knew of Paulo Coelho but had read his books. It was thought an excellent idea were Paulo Coelho to be invited to the Guildford Book Festival in October, especially as he has a new book Aleph out in September.

I was in Istanbul on St Joseph’s Day for a party with Paulo Coelho and guests to celebrate St Joseph’s Day.

I noticed books in The Keystone. I chatted with the bar staff and suggested they registered the books on BookCrossing and became a BookCrossing Zone. They liked the idea.

I had never been in The Keystone before. I looked in earlier in the day at lunchtime. It is a very pleasant pub, nice atmosphere, seating outside. As it was a pleasant warm evening I wish we had sat outside. The only pub I have seen with a declared environment policy.

The Keystone is easy to find. Bottom of the High Street in Guildford, across the bridge over the River Wey, behind the back of St Nicolas Church.

Eden People are a free-ranging Christian collective.

Creative Arts @ Costa is taking a summer break for August and September. They will be back first Tuesday of October (same day as the farmers market in Guildford High Street).

- Midsummer Feast with Eden people
- Eden People at Costa
- Eden People demonstrating use of Jesus Cards
- An Evening with Eden People
- Eden People – Mind Body Spirit – Holy Trinity