Campsie Hotel, Campsie

327 Beamish Street, Campsie

The Toffee Apple. 

It’s been so long that I don’t even remember how to do this anymore - this post is very much a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing.  This place has been in my side mirror for a number of years. Scary to think objects are actually closer than they appear. The Codifier called it some time ago and I’ve been joking about it for a while now so it had to happen eventually. Is this the sort of pub that you would think would nudge us out of an indefinite hiatus? Absolutely not.

It’s been a funny number of years, hasn’t it. A lot has changed since our initial flurry of reviews but one thing remains constant - pubs.  

Dust Boot said a year back, something to the effect of, “holy shit, check out this place - it looks like a toffee apple” with its red and green colourings going on from the street (Beamish Street). Green tile, red light glow, flashing “VIP beacons”. Hell yeah.

Maybe I’ll cut to the chase here - suburb AF. It’s been predicted by someone dear to me that this could be a good place to get stabbed. So it was with that statement that I decided I needed to find that out and hopefully prove her wrong. You don’t see a lot or get much more of a gist from the street, you have the enter. Once I came in though I was sort of surprised, minimally, that there was a bit more here. All the various nooks/rooms kind of join in the middle. The bistro/dining area meets a main bar, the main bar services the wall of gambling and sports screens, the wall-of-screens room meets the “VIP” slapper machines and another bar, which might be somewhat of a mini sports bar with pool room, which then takes you to the street again. Bottle shop sales at the main bar, pisser to the right of that.

Food wise I was actually a little surprised but I’m not sure why. The menu was reasonably good Chinese in an area which is quite Chinese. To go a bit further, this might be some of the better Chinese on the Beamish Street strip, which is full of a lot of pretty average Chinese and Asian food - in my average white man opinion at least. Based on what I had anyway.

I had the beef rice noodle soup, $11. And I had this alongside a $5.80 schooner of Coopers Pale Ale. That’s some kind of 2012 wizardry price shit in an era of increasingly higher priced craft beer.

There’s a “beer garden” upstairs - absolutely empty tonight - but 1 point for its existence.

I almost considered playing some pinball but had no jingle-jingle.

If you’re looking for a reasonably priced beer on a Friday - tick. If you’re looking for a Chinese meal - tick. If you’re looking for a couple of pool tables and pinny - tick.  If you’re looking for screens and screens and screens of sports, trots, dogs, keno - tick tick tick! Covid? - hopefully not a tick.

It’s like, not good. But a reasonably okay good kind of not good.

I actually might come here again. I just have to convince the girlfriend she won’t get stabbed.