Colchester – Three Wise Monkeys
This visit was from a few weeks ago, when we went to this craft beer bar and BBQ restaurant, which is certainly not a bad little combination. It’s well reviewed, indeed one of the best rated locations in Colchester, both for the food and beer. This venue, which also incorporates a gin bar, opened in 2014 and they’ve also now opened a sister outlet in the centre of Ipswich.
Some of the beer options, with a suitably interesting range of different beer styles. The staff here were engaging and efficient, although we were wise to book a table as they seemed to be quite full. There was a minor error with one drink in the evening, but the staff cleared that problem up promptly, so all was well. Everything was clean and organised and they were taking the appropriate health precautions.
The ‘We Oat to Know Better’ from Wild Weather Ales of Reading in Berkshire in conjunction with Brew York, this was rather lovely, a fruity flavour and suitably sweet. It’s marketed as an imperial strawberry milkshake, something which sounds tempting to me at the best of times. It was perhaps too sweet to drink a lot of this, so I switched to something a little darker.
This is the ‘Black Sow’ from the White Hag brewery, perfectly acceptable as a milk stout, although I thought it lacked some richness and strength of flavours.
My phone camera’s wide angle has rather squished this image so that the portion size looks small, but there’s more here than the photo might suggest. It’s the smoked meat combo of beef brisket, sausage and pulled pork, which was all rather lovely, although the brisket was just a little too fatty for me. The sausage was though excellent with a richness of flavour and the pulled pork was tender. The chips were crunchy on the exterior and fluffy inside, the gherkins added texture and flavour and everything was well cooked and flavoured.
I like the whole concept of this restaurant, and also liked that it was clearly working given how many people were dining and drinking there. They do take deposits before reserving tables, which is probably a sensible idea, although might put some customers off. They don’t reply to TripAdvisor reviews, which is a shame as I would have liked to have known what happened to cause this recent review:
“We paid a deposit to have a table at 9:15 and we got here 15 minutes early. All we done was walk in and ask if we could sit down early and the minute we walked in the general manager was so disgusting to us he spoke to us disgusting. When my partner asked if there’s somewhere we can sit whilst we are waiting for our table the general manager Charles Gregory all of a sudden got so rude to my partner started telling him under no circumstances can he accommodate us even though he let two other girls sit down inside the bar. What a bunch of contemptuous rude disgusting people running an establishment you should be ashamed of. I will be taking this further to the owners of how DISGUSTING AND OBNOXIOUS the general manager is he should be ashamed of how he treated us. Why he felt the need to look down at us like he was so smug and better than us. Disgusting hope he gets fired”
I’m sure there are two sides to the story there, or disgustinggate….
Anyway, I like the venue and thought that the craft beer selection was varied and interesting, especially given the limitations of trade at the moment. The staff were also knowledgeable about the beer options and keen to engage, always a positive sign in a venue such as this. Perhaps they’ll get to opening a venue in Norwich one day….
