Speights Ale House

One of my all round favourite venues. Good food. Friendly staff. Nice seating. Always a comfortable atmosphere. Really like the way the staff bring around free snacks on a friday night. Good host responsibility. Really impressed.

I do like coming here! Nice and casual, the staff are really friendly and easy to chat to. I've always had the chicken tenders off the kids menu so I have room for the brownie, which is honestly so good and draws me back every time! I don't venture far from what I usually get, but still seems pretty good from what I see and hear

A pretty good standard of pub food. The menu was very varied with a lot of fish and vegetarian options. A highlight was the calamari to start, and the salmon with cous cous was great too.

Ordered the toasted chicken sammie which was $19.50,nothing wrong with the description,that is exactly what it was,lumps of chicken in toasted bread,no salad,absolutely nothing to make it look appetising, won't be rushing back there. The waitress was lovely though.

I 'm not sure how we ended up here but this evening, on the way home from work, we suffered a combination of thirst, hunger and knowledge of an empty fridge at home as we made our way up Tinakori Rd. As if by divine intervention a parking space appeared outside the doors of what I always remembered as the Western Park. Taking this as a sign, a decade or so after my last visit, we thought why not? It seems the Western Park had been disembowelled and what used to be cosy little spaces was now gutted simply now a large open space with central bar area, dining to the right and drinking to the left. A small outdoor area caters for those wanting the pleasure of fresh air coupled to second hand smoke. It 's a Speight 's Ale House, its neither Michelin nor molecular, but it does have a familiar, comfortable feel midway between an old New Zealand booze barn and a Cobb and Co. Immediately it was apparent that all of the staff were extremely friendly, fast and attentive. I was very impressed. I was also impressed that there were kids in the pub, eating and drinking something clear or pink) with parents it gave a civilised feel to what could have been a space dominated by TV screens showing racing, or the electronic TAB machine in the corner. Choice of beer was of course narrowed by Speight 's ownership. Despite living in the Craft Capital, I still don 't mind a Speights ale occasionally. You have to imagine a world where flavoured beer smoked, peaty, coffee, chocolate, fruit etc etc and over hopped beer ridiculously high IBU IPA/APAs were all you could get. Yeastie Boys T Rex every night for weeks on end Imagine then the introduction of something gentle like Speights golden ale it would be so comparatively delicious it would be silly. So with that thought experiment, I ordered a Golden Ale it was totally inoffensive, wet, and it contained alcohol. Perfect. The choice of ciders irritated me with only one being a cider and the others all apple fruit concoctions. CIDER IS MADE ONLY WITH APPLES. We ordered a Speights cider. Standard sweet cider which seemed to be made using the gamut of pasteurisation, sweetening, filtration etc. But it tasted OK and most wouldn 't know that this wasn 't a traditional cider. The food choice was reasonably standard for a pub, and there was nothing that at some stage I 'd turn my nose up at. A blackboard special was a coconut thai soup which sounded interesting, so we ordered that to share as well as a bowl of fries. The bowl of fries was very large bigger than most pub fries, and came with T sauce ? watties) and an aoli of sorts. The fries were good, standard technique but notable in that the width about 1.25cm) was about 2.5 times the thickness about 5mm). I thought this gave a nicer crust/interior ratio than the usual square cut or wedge fries. The soup was OK but I had the impression it may have come out of a packet with a flavour more like a pumpkin soup adulterated by a little coriander, chilli, and maybe a little coconut milk. It was pleasant enough, and, after a glass of golden ale, its cayenne helped give one a sense of warmth and comfort. Another glass, then home. Not a gourmet craft beer joint for guys with beards, but who cares the connoisseur knows that there 's a time and place for everything.