The Ragged Trousers

44 The Pantiles, Royal Tunbridge Wells,
Kent TN2 5TN 01892 542715

When Manny submitted a comment to me recommending The Ragged Trousers, I couldn't wait to get down there. My wife and I really like this place. I think its a great place for a pint, and my wife really loves boring me to tears by banging on and on about how great it is that a classic in working class, socialist literature should inspire the name of a pub in a capitalist stronghold blah blah blah yawn zzzzzzzzzzzz.
Anyway, for one reason or another, it would be an absolute pleasure to give the food a glowing review, and also, it put us off from having to bankrupt ourselves at the "ooo, let's open a restaurant in Tunbridge Wells, they're rich and stupid, so they won't notice we're charging over a tenner for sausage and mash" Bar & Grill for another week. If only, if ONLY, we had stuck to the pint of prawns and chips as suggested by Manny, maybe we could have given it the review we wanted to.
Perhaps we were unlucky on the day, because the fish in the "chish and phips" was off, and all the garlic in the world (and it tasted like it WAS all the garlic in the world) could not disguise the metallic taste of the mince in my wife's burger. A shame, because both plates were nicely put together and the sides - particularly my home made tartare sauce - were great. Home made sticky toffee pudding, and mint choc chips ice cream, rather sweetly served with a sprinkling of hundreds and thousands, fared better but I doubt even Prezzo could cock up puddings THAT straightforward. Mind you, I wouldn't bank on it.
We would definitely want to give this place another go and try the snack menu; I've got a sneaky feeling that this is where their expertise lies. It is really upsetting to try a place, and really wish for it to be great, and find it falls short of the mark - perhaps even worse than wanting to hate a place and finding that, actually, you really quite like it.
Two mains, two puddings, a pint and a glass of wine came to a reasonable £33.
Don't let our small sample put you off though, this is a great pub.
Update coming soon...

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Comments

[Manny]

OK so that could of been better. You could be right about the simpler food, we have only eaten there once and it is hard to cock up a pint of prawns (shell on), a pint of chips (although the chips were particularly good) and fish cakes which were exceptionally good but there you go, maybe it was the main chefs day off when you guys went ;-)
Give me one more try and you wont be disappointed, try the Max's Italian deli on Monson Road (3b), you won't find a better panini, ciabatta or antipasti anywhere in TW , you can even have a glass of wine or two with it which is nice!

[Mrs Anke]

No, no, no, no, we have complete faith in you, Manny. I'm just sad that we ordered the wrong things, and Mr Anke couldn't write a better review! But yes, we are totally with you on the subject of Max and his Deli! A couple of summers ago, we got him to make us up a huge hamper which we lugged to Dunorlan Park - it is imprinted in our memories as one of our best food experiences. I will get Mr Anke to make a return visit with his reviewer's hat on!

Mrs Anke

[sydney]

wonderful. good tasty food for under £15 for two courses this includes bread and olives. my steak and frites were the best ive ever tasted and my compamions lamb cassarole was good too. yas the place is a bit basic but with food at this price who cares it just adds to its charm.

[New Yorker in Tunbridge Wells]

Had their steak sandwich lunch recently and thought it was very well crafted with all the ingredients obviously given care and attention. Medium rare was done medium rare. Chips were decent. Nothing to complain about. And service was friendly. Will go back and try something else before drawing any firm conclusions, but so far, so good!