Restaurant Review: The Faraday, Epsom

Often when we go to the cinema we have dinner beforehand at a restaurant nearby; over the past few years we've eaten at most restaurants on Epsom High Street! One place we'd never been to is the Faraday (actually on Church St, on the corner of the High St) - a pub that we'd always walked past thinking it was too busy and probably more the sort of place you go to drink than eat.

Perhaps later in the night that is the case (judging by TripAdvisor reviews of bouncers on the doors and deals that appeal to the student crowd) but when we went it was actually fairly quiet - by the time we left it was nicely busy.

I like a pub that goes that one step further and I noticed xbox controllers and screens as well as board games which I thought was a really cool idea; they let you choose your own music to play (presumably for the whole pub to hear); the menu even mentioned that you could ask at the bar if you needed a phone charger - and a printing service, which says they can't print your whole thesis but are good for a few pages if you can't get to your printer. That seems one for the students!

The range and originality of the menu is impressive; as well as all the usual burgers they offer a chicken katsu burger which I've never come across before (though I love chicken katsu curry), a crawfish roll (not seen on menus often enough in my opinion) and some quite unusual vegetarian and vegan dishes like a Lebanese style aubergine crumble. I was really tempted by the desserts as well - specifically the cookie cup, which is a biscuit base filled with chocolate brownie, marshmallow pieces and chocolate honeycomb, served with vanilla ice cream - but in the end we didn't get as far as dessert (though our drinks pretty much counted as dessert!).

 

At that point I hadn't had a burger in ages so I decided to have the chicken melt burger - good value at £8.25 with a chicken breast topped with bacon, melted cheese and the BBQ sauce (the sauce really made it) and it came of course with fries.

I'd spotted something while perusing the drinks menu that I really wanted to try but knew the calorie count would be off the chart, so tried to persuade my husband to share one for dessert - but he wanted one all to himself! So we ended up ordering two 'freakshakes' - thick chocolate milkshakes with streaks of chocolate sauce down the inside of the glass, topped with a giant cookie balanced on top of the glass, with a swirl of whipped cream on top. There was a straw going through the cream and the centre of the cookie down into the glass, and threaded onto the straw were two mini chocolate profiteroles!

It was amazing though I could have done without the extra cream on top - and I only drank half of it as it was just too much. I was about to comment to my husband that we should have shared one after all, only to find he had already polished his off!