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Chimes is is a small and pleasant restaurant, tucked away on a side street in Pimlico, and an excellent place to come for real cider, sold by the half-pint glass or 2-pint jug. They do a very good mead as well (£2/small glass), and three or four fruit wines. It's essentially a restaurant with a bar area, but you can come here and just drink and not eat.

Kake went there with Alan:

The food is "traditional English". One starter that I do want to try at some point is the black pudding topped with Stilton sauce. Alan had the spinach and cheese loaf, which wasn't bad. He liked it a lot. I had the "Partan Pie" for my starter — crabmeat, breadcrumbs and some other stuff baked in a ramekin and served with bread. It was... interesting. There seemed to be some fake crabmeat in there as well as the real thing. It's a Scottish dish, not English, but oh well. Another time I had the Gazpacho off the "supper menu" — it was good. As good as my home-made one.

The main courses are mostly (pretty decent) pies, including a vegetarian one with a nice, rich, tomato sauce, various vegetables such as carrots, broccoli and aubergine, and hazelnuts. A little bit too much sauce for my taste, but not bad. The pies all come with a selection of vegetables, and cost from around £6–7 on average.

The dessert menu includes chocolate and brandy mousse, which we tried and decided didn't have enough chocolate in it. That was priced somewhere between £3 and £4.

In all, our bill for two people each having a starter and a pie, and sharing a dessert, was £60 — but half of that was for drinks. We did drink quite a lot.

Earle went there with DrHyde, who had the roast lamb (about £10), and described it as "one step shy of orgasmic". Earle had the shepherd's pie (about £6), which he described as being "quite splendid". His side order of new potatoes was pretty pricy, though, at £1.50 for about four!

[All prices as of October 2002.]

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