Leman Street Tavern, Aldgate

In what was once the colourful heart of the old Jewish East End, the pogrom continues unchecked. Championed by a megalomaniac Mayor who has the interests of Brexit Boris, not London or Britain, at the heart of his cold calculating heart; Goodman’s Fields is yet another shining example of the shiny boxy bland ghettoes to greed that are disfiguring our city, robbing it of all originality and charm. At the entrance to this new 'luxury' slum, Geronimo Inns has splashed out a tidy sum on its latest trough and watering hole, Leman Street Tavern. The same £1.5 million would just about buy a banker a pad here - although possibly not one with a view of the equine civic 'art' that announces it. This is a blessing in disguise: two bronze stallions frolicking in a stream are the sort of trashy 70s sculptures only Beverley from Abigail's Party or deranged deceased dictators, the Caesescus, would brook in their front yard's brook. Geronimo Inns' ('a group of proper pubs with an eye for the different and the delicious’) newbie is comfy, colourful and serviceable… but for ‘different’ read 'design-by-numbers after various punchier postmodern bar-brasserie-gastropubs.' ‘Delicious’? That'll be Macon-Lugny on a list that largely sits south of £30 and offers two dozen choices by the glass for sunny day stragglers drawn to a generic pavement terrace  onto a chronically congested A-road. Fill up on bar snacks of black pudding sausage roll, baked Camembert with buttered soldiers, and potato and leek hotpot. Dine on crab gratin followed by pork faggot, greens and mash, with fried milk and poached rhubarb for afters at  LST, the sort of mid-market one-size-fits-all gaff I imagine morning TV Haribore eye candy Susanna Reid might fancy. Me? I'm off to grittier gaffs on nearby polyglot Brick Lane...before the Curse of the Developer destroys it too. 

Goodman’s Fields, Leman Street, E1 8EY 3437 0001www.lemanstreettavern.co.uk 

The Lord Palmerston, Dartmouth Park

(all a little bit Linda?)

Dartmouth Park, I'm told, is popular with wannabe Prime Ministers. it's home, apparently, to the wrong brother installed by the Labour Party as their leader after godawful Gordon was sent packing. Tonight, I've agreed to attend the launch of Geronimo Inns' latest pub conversion, The Lord Palmerston, deep in DedMilibland-land. It's not, I'll level with you, that I'm desperate to see what they've done to the old place: I've visited so many of their pubs,  I've got the measure of their signature look by now - think Nu-Victoriana/ Cool Britannia as interpreted by a Linda Barker type off Mumsnet. No, I'm killing two birds and meeting friends who swear that Norway, as I refer to anywhere NW, is nirvana. 'What do you reckon to the place?' I ask my local love bird chums. The newlyweds - fashion/ advertising hot shots  - aren't convinced. 'Sunday red top design supplement' sighs she. 'It looked better before,' says he, witheringly. Before I can venture an opinion, we're back out the same door we entered by, mere minutes before. Freaked out, fashion friend has fainted and hubby is comforting her, clammy and cold on the cold pavement as she comes to. The cause of her distress? What bright spark lays on a filthy-big, tongue-flickin'. fookin' ferocious-looking, 15-feet-long, man-eating, scaly serpent from hell as entertainment - especially at an oversubscribed launch party in a confined space? Ophidiophobia: 37% of the adult population suffer from it, dontcha' know, you donut? So I'm afraid I'm unable to comment on the pub's ales and victuals beyond the slug of tomato juice I managed to down before our hasty retreat. (Kinda tomato-ish). Feeling somehow personally responsible (I must sort out this Catholic guilt thing: I mean, I'm not even a Christian, let alone a follower of some old Argentinian fart in a frock and a fancy Philip Treacy hat), I bundle swooning Mrs and concerned Mr into my car and deliver them to their preferred local where I buy brandy and dinner by way of an apology. Presently, fainty Fanny feels better, happy in familiar surroundings; and as said local is lovely The Bull and Last, I'm not exactly complaining. So, will I be reviewing Geronimo's latest in full any time soon? Another expedition to Norway? No way! 

33 Dartmouth Park Hill NW5 1 HU 7485 1578 www.geronimo-inns.co.uk/thelordpalmerston

The Half Moon, Putney

Aeons ago, I reluctantly schlepped down the District Line to witness an obscure new Country & Western act play a scruffy old Putney alehouse. In its small barn-like live music lounge, a high cheek-boned 1950s be-quiffed creature presently ambled out to total silence. Picked out by the beam of a solitary spotlight, in kick-ass cowboy boots, canary yellow yee-haw waistcoat and garish petrol blue dirndl skirt accessorised with plastic farm animals, was this Oklahoma's answer to Morrissey in drag, I wondered? Falling to the floor, laying flat on her back, and without any instrumental backing, the curious vision proceeded to out-Patsy Patsy Cline with a sublime pitch-perfect rendition of Willie Nelson's Crazy - the most-played song of all time on US jukeboxes, should the question ever come up in a pub quiz. From that hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-raising moment on, I have admired K D Lang and retained a soft spot for a boozer that, since launching in 1963, has hosted everyone from The Stones and The Who to Kate Bush, Elvis Costello and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. Its future was under threat, but thanks to new backers, Geronimo Inns, the venue should now even outlast the career of one set of previous Half Moon minstrels. Fronted by the smug Irish git in the tinted glasses, I'm talking about that unfathomably popular band that unites all people of good taste - as in 'Hurrah! U2 can't stand them?' Fast forward to 2011, the atmospheric live gig room's bijou stage hosts an eclectic mix of Joe strummers, nightly. But if you're a prog rock or psych folk avoider, the saloon bar functions as a separate space, so no need to ask for ear plugs with your pint of local microbrewer Sambrook’s finest. The fading boozer has been subjected to Geronimo's signature scalping. The group's Slightly overstuffed, quirky vision of trad pub nouveau - with a gallery of signed portraits of familiar faces that have played Putney - will chime with the area’s Cath Kidston classes for whom, back-to-basics comfort food: cured meats and pickles, eggs and bacon, fish and chips and apple pie and custard at high street prices. In terms of rock'n'roll attitude, the new Half Moon may be more Mick Hucknall now than Mick Jagger then, but at least the old place hasn't been converted into fancy flats.

93 Lower Richmond Road SW15 1EU 8780 9383 www.halfmoon.co.uk 

The Cow, Stratford

Root canal work; Ryanair; Jennifer Aniston films: some of life’s possibilities I’d rather avoid. Ditto indoor shopping centres like the teeming new Mother of them (m)all, Westfield Stratford. Brandroid heaven to many, to me it's the seventh circle of Hell. There's a Westfield within ten minutes of my home: number of times visited? Two, and only then because I was press-ganged into it. On a Saturday afternoon in Stratford, jostled into submission by JLS and Jordan clones, I concede defeat after just twenty minutes and seek sanctuary at The Cow. Was this pub and kitchen named after a fake baked female in Uggs outside who demands of her truculent toddler what ‘his ‘f***ing problem’ is? Erm, being dragged screaming round Westfield by a hatchet-faced horror  from an episode of Shameless? Like much else here, the Cow is part of a large chain: in this case, Geronimo Inns’ portfolio of nearly thirty. I quite like some of their venues - The Surprise in Chelsea,for example -  but this baby - Desperate Dan’s gaff as imagined by a Swedish flatpack merchant - surprises for all the wrong reasons. Geronimo’s usually watertight operation is skewered by inane service and an inept kitchen: some advertised items are missing; replaced, in the case of sourdough, by a stale toasted roll. Plates are delivered to the wrong tables;  my omelette reminds me of a charter flight to Alicante's rubbery breakfast offer: should I continue? Fortunately, sweetheart managers Lara and Leslie take charge, gamely attempting (but ultimately still failing)  to rectify their charges’ howlers. A substitute medium rare cheese burger is sent out overdone and with bacon but no cheese but by now I'm past caring and would eat a scabby dog, never mind charred cow. To be fair,  Lara does alter the bill to reflect our poor, protracted lunch experience - did I mention the 45 minute wait for a table? It’s early days and hopefully, The Cow will improve. As it stands, its draught  Redemption Pale Ale and Sharp’s Cornish Coaster  aren't enough to draw me back to Westfield East any time soon. If you - for some inexplicable reason - find yourself in this new retail nirvana, check out my idea of a good pub out E20 way, The King Edward VII on nearby Stratford Broadway.

Westfield, Stratford City E20 8291 8644http://www.geronimo-inns.co.uk/the-cow-westfield-stratford-city