A BRIT woman abroad has reviewed a British pub she found in the USA – which serves bizarre “sausage rolls” and steak with a side of crisps.
KT Franklin was visiting her American boyfriend in Dallas, Texas earlier this month when the pair opted for a bit of home comfort for her in the form of a British-themed pub.
The 22-year-old was impressed to see the boozer sporting British music, drinks and even the footy on TV – but was stunned by some of the supposedly British grub on offer.
The video begins with KT from Oxford, Oxfordshire approaching the exterior of a pub called the Harwood Arms – which is painted red and boasts a beer garden outside.
She says: “Today the weather really reminded me of home, so I decided to go to a British-themed pub in Texas. This pub has a lot of great reviews from Americans so let’s see what it’s like.”
“I feel like you can tell that you’re not in England just from the outside, that this is a busy main street, but it does look like a pub when you actually get close, it’s pretty good decor.
“As soon as I opened the door, I’m hearing Amy Winehouse and they’re playing football, honestly I’m impressed – it’s not far off.”
Inside the pub is traditional wood panelling features, a familiar British style bar and barstools, overhead TVs showing the football and plenty of familiar decor items.
Content creator KT then says: “The first thing that I did was go to the toilet because I was bursting for a wee and I saw this Chelsea x Texas sign which I thought was sick.”
The flag in question is a mashup of the Texas state flag with the Chelsea FC logo inside with half red and half blue colours representing the two with text reading: “North Texas Blues Chelsea FC.”
The Brit then heads to the bathroom as she documents: “The bathroom impressed me as well though because this was definitely a British nan’s wallpaper.
“The only give away was the big gap in the stalls, that’s the only way that I would have known that I was in America.”
KT then returns to a table where her and her boyfriend offer a breakdown of the menu, which features plenty of British pub staples.
She explains: “Now let’s check out the menu. I was actually really surprised by a lot of the things that I saw on here like Scotch eggs and sausage rolls as a starter – definitely trying that.
“Then I saw chicken tikka masala and chicken tikka masala salad – a British pub having a curry on the menu is actually very real, but I was not expecting to see the salad.”
KT opts for the sausage roll to begin with but is ultimately shocked by what is set down in front of her, laughing in disbelief as she says: “Okay, trigger warning for what you’re about to see.
“I’m actually so shocked – this is a sausage roll. This is the American take on a sausage roll – jail. You lot are going to jail that’s actually awful.”
A baffled KT showcases the “sausage rolls” which, instead of sausage meat wrapped in pastry, instead consist of mini frankfurters wrapped in what appears to be bread or dough of some sort.
The meal appears to resemble some sort of hybrid between corndogs and hotdogs instead of the familiar sight of British sausage rolls.
KT then shows she Scotch egg, which resembles its British counterpart much more than the sausage rolls, aside from the runny yolk inside.
She says: “This is the Scotch egg. I was concerned as to why it’s runny in the middle, it’s just very gourmet looking but I guess it is a starter, it still did look good and was very crunchy on the outside.
“For my main I ordered a shepherd’s pie because I thought that you can’t really go wrong with that, and I was kind of craving one anyways.
“My boyfriend ordered steak and chips so trigger warning because these are not chips these are literally crisps.
“I know that in this country these are the opposite, but I think they actually put crisps on the side of his plate and thought that was steak and chips.”
KT then turns the camera to her boyfriend’s meal, where a steak can be seen served alongside a portion of bizarre burnt-looking orange crisps instead of chips or fries.
KT concludes: “As you can see from the shepherd’s pie, they just put a pile of mash potato on top and didn’t cook it so it’s very runny on top but it’s actually pretty good.
“Again, the food is not bad here it just isn’t British food but again were in America, they’re trying I appreciate a trier.
“However, this Yorkshire pudding this is literally undercooked biscuit batter that they’ve put into a Yorkshire pudding shape – no, definitely not.”
KT posted the clip to social media on Saturday with the caption: “They definitely tried.
“Seriously though, the atmosphere was nice, and they nailed the decor, food was a little pricey but good for pub grub.
“This place would definitely be great for when the footballs on, just get rid of that Yorkshire pudding.”
The video has since received over 113,000 likes and more than 350 comments from stunned Brits left bewildered by the meals on offer.
One user wrote: “Surely they can find a chef who’s lived in England.”
Another commented: “Annoys me that the shepherd’s pie is beef, that’s a cottage pie.”
A third joked: “It’s like uncanny valley but for British food.”
Another wrote: “A fancy Scotch egg is runny in the middle… a pub-level scotch egg should never be.”
A fifth said: “My toxic trait is that I’d get a job there and try to fix everything.”
Speaking today KT said: ” I used to be a waitress at Nando’s, so it’s been a journey and now I love going to restaurants to review experiences.
“My first impression was that this pub was actually very interesting on the outside.
“It had a little lion statue, it had a little beer garden setup,p but it was on a busy Dallas street so you really wouldn’t have known that this pub was going to be here if you didn’t look closely.
“It actually had a really good pub vibe, it kind of reminded me of a country pub in the UK but it was in the middle of a street which was crazy because it looked very misplaced.
“When I walked in, they had some Adele and Amy Winehouse playing, they had the football on. I’ve never actually seen football on in America aside from this one pub which was nice to see.
“I wasn’t super busy on the inside – there were a couple groups of people. The bar was fully stocked, they had a bunch of different and interesting cocktails.
“They had Guiness mixed with a bunch of different things, they had like five different variations of a Guiness cocktail which I’ve never seen before. It was really interesting and so was the menu.
“They had the chicken tikka masala which is obviously very funny to see because that is like a national British meal, and they even had a salad version of that too.
“Some stuff I’d never seen before but when we ordered the food, I didn’t have super high hopes, but when I ordered the sausage roll, I thought they couldn’t go wrong with that surely.
“The sausage roll was more like a hotdog. In fact, in my DMs after posting the picture of the sausage roll, they had a bunch of Americans telling me that they call that a pigs in blanket.
“Of course, our pigs in blankets we’d only really have at Christmas time and is a different thing so it’s just really interesting.
“The Scotch egg I’m told is actually really, really good from people in the comments of my video. For me, I’ve only ever seen picnic style Scotch eggs and sausage rolls instead of a gourmet one.
“My boyfriend said his steak and chips were awful. Obviously in the video you can see the chips are little crisps and the steak was apparently not that good, but you know, it’s pub food, you can’t be mad at pub grub.
“My shepherd’s pie was good but apparently they also got that wrong because they used beef instead of lamb.
“It definitely did feel like a British pub though, the food was just meh, my boyfriend said that he definitely wouldn’t go there again because the prices were extremely high and for pub grub, I was expecting a little bit less, but you know, it’s not England so can’t really complain – they did a decent job.”
