THE RED LION - London rd, Cosham

After lunch with Marty and Chris last week, we decided to go again this week. We were to be in the Cosham area, which may not be a hot bed of gastronomy, but we decided to check out the food at The Red Lion. Unless you go, you never know.

There is parking next to the pub, which is pay and display, but if you are using the pub, there is a system in place where by you enter your details in to a magical machine. Once that was negotiated, we plunged forth to the inner pub in search of fodder. We plucked up our menu's, headed for a table and got stuck in to business. There are quite a few sections to the menu, including wraps, burgers, pizza's, grill and classics. There is also a vegetarian and vegan menu, which is very thoughtful. The pizza's are stone baked and freshly made, and can be had, with a drink for less than £10. It should be noted that drinks on this option are limited. Another item of note was that all chips are advertised as triple cooked. There are also a selection of meals available for £5 from 12:00, including wraps, fish and chips and sausage and colcannon.

Martin decided today would be a wrap day, a chicken and bacon wrap to be precise. This was served with chips and coleslaw for the bargain price of £5.75. It would have been £5, but we ordered before 12:00. Chris went for the half roast chicken at £8.50. This came with chips, onion rings and coleslaw. But check this out. You can upgrade to large and get a whole chicken for £11.50. That's a lot of chicken, but at a bargain price. There are also several sauces you can pick from to spice up Mr or Mrs chicken. I was tempted by the chicken, but was more interested in the pizza's on offer. I went with the Chick Norris. Pulled chicken, mozzarella, pepper and red onion with a BBQ sauce. Martin and I also porked things up a bit with some extra onion rings for £1.99.

This dear readers is where the service came in to question. Martin's food came out very quickly. He was though sitting there with his food for a good time before we were joined by the rest of our order. Even when most of it had arrived, Chris had to wait another five minutes for the extra mac and cheese he had ordered. And yes, he did order too much food. Despite this hiccup in food delivery, it all looked quite good. My pizza wasn't a uniformed circle, as if to prove it's freshly made status. It was also very tasty and satisfying. My onion rings were a little over done however. Martin thoroughly enjoyed his wrap, and was kind enough to lend me one of his triple cooked chips. We both agreed that they were good, better than your average pub chip, but almost certainly not made from scratch in house. He was also rather taken with the way that the coleslaw was served in a little lettuce dish. A nice touch in deed. Chris was very happy with his chicken and friends, and he ate until he could eat no more.

This is not a fine dining pub. But it is a pub that does decent food at very good prices. With a few service tweaks, it could be so much rosier at The Red Lion. There is also a nice seating area out the front of the pub, the only down side being the proximity to the road. If you find yourself in the Cosham area in need of sustenance, you could do much worse than a trip to The Red Lion.

Atmosphere          8

Service                 6

Food                    7.5

Value                   9

Verdict                 3.5*