If you’re looking for an authentic London dining experience, then the Red Lion Pub on Shepherd is a pretty good bet. By this I mean that the food will cost you a left arm and a right lung, and isn’t very good.

We chose this particular pub on the recommendation of Food Network’s Guy Fieri, not the first time we’ve done this, and although we think he’s a great guy, we’re starting to doubt the quality of the restaurants he shows on his show Diners, Dives, and Drive-ins. While poking around on the web and doing some research for this review, I found this blog entry from Tasty Bits that discusses the drama behind DDD picking locations to film in Houston. The Cliff’s Notes version is that half of the good “dives” weren’t interested and the other half didn’t have the staff or clientele to match the Food Network’s demographic. Thus, they were stuck turning towards restaurants with subpar food, but had the look and atmosphere to convince the viewers that they were good.

It was a nice pub. The red Faux-leather booths were delightfully tacky, and it was a pretty clean place. The wait staff was very friendly and attentive, but they had the look where you knew they weren’t hired to serve food to families, they were hired to serve beer to rowdies. And the general conclusion we came to, after tasting the food, is that the Red Lion is a great place to go to for a beer on the weekend or after work, but not for dinner. On to the food.

As an appetizer we had the Samosas, which are cone shaped, pastry cones that are filled with curry-like mixtures.. Be forewarned, those that have texture issues, the inside goes beyond mush. We had 2 vegetarian Samosas, and 2 meat samosas. It was hard to discern which was which, but after some deliberation we preferred the vegetarian. The meat (which was lamb) had an overpowering taste, whereas the vegetarian mush was a much more familiar flavor and was actually quite good. They were probably the best part of the meal.

For dinner we ordered the Pan-Seared Chicken in a Lemon Caper Basil Butter Sauce, Roasted Lamb ‘n’ Yorkshire Pudding, and the pub staple Fish ‘N’ Chips.

The Pan-Seared Chicken was dreadful. Although the chicken moist, it was unfortunately because the “Lemon Caper Basil Butter Sauce” was really a stick of butter melted on top with a few peas and some squirts of lemon in it. It really was just like melted butter rather an actual sauce. It was disgusting and I could feel my arteries being clogged as I ate it. The garlic mashed potatoes looked like a pick hockey puck, as they were covered in some sort of strange film. They may have been delicious, but I made the mistake of tasting the butter sauce first, which was so incredibly rich that it took about 10 minutes after eating it before my taste buds regained their ability to sense any other flavor.

The Roasted Lamb ‘n’ Yorkshire Pudding wasn’t very good either. It didn’t look very appetizing to start with. The lamb was plain brown little chunks. It tasted as plain as it looked, and was very dry and without much taste, and anyone who has had lamb knows that there’s no more unpleasant mouth sensation than chewing on dry, flavorless lamb. The Yorkshire pudding was way too heavy, like a clod of dirt, whereas it should be very light, like a cloud. Its density resembled chocolate pudding more than Yorkshire pudding (which is actually a savory bread dish similar to American popovers.) There are 2 possibilities that crossed my mind for why it was like this. Either #1, because anyone who’s tried making Yorkshire Pudding knows that it can at times be frustrating to get it to turn out right, and it’s possible that their recipe plays it safe by skimping on eggs or adding too much flour or fat to guarantee that it would come out right, or #2, because they’re lousy cooks. Either way, if I’m paying 16$ for a few chunks of meet, a pile of vegetables, and a single serving of Yorkshire Pudding, I expect that I’m paying for the food to be cooked right and taste good, and this certainly wasn’t right.

The Fish ‘N’ Chips were good, but nothing special. It had a simple breading, was nicely golden, and the fries were nothing special and lacked any sort of a flavor. This paragraph is short, because there’s not much else to say about it. At least, as a British Pub, they can cook a halfway decent Fish ‘N’ Chip.

They had a few dessert options, but we were so disappointed with our entrees that we decided to head around the counter to try Swirll for some frozen yogurt. It’s a cool idea, where you make your dish yourself and pay by the ounce (toppings and yogurt included), but it wasn’t very good either. A fitting end to a disastrous gastro-night.

All in all, I’d reiterate that this is probably not a place where you should go to eat a meal. To have some drinks with friends, it’s top notch, but as a restaurant it’s pretty awful. Even if the food tasted good, the prices would still be hard to swallow. 16$ for a chicken breast and mashed potatoes? 11$ for a cheeseburger? In an area like Montrose with so many great restaurants, including several other pubs, this place isn’t worth your time or your money.