Description: The Whale & Ale claims to be San Pedro's only authentic British pub and restaurant. It's located near the intersection of 7th street and Palos Verde Street. There's plenty of parking behind the building. The Whale & Ale is located in a "deader" area of town.
Upon entering, the decor resembles an English Victorian parlor with plenty of rich dark wood paneling. There's a bar with a baby grand piano in the rear half of the restaurant. There's a fairly large upstairs dining area too.
We visited just after lunchtime. We were greeted promptly and seated by the waitress. We chose a table along the side of the dining area near the fireplace. The menu featured plenty of the expected British pub fare, such as fish-and-chips, steaks, sausage dishes, and meat pies. My friend chose a French dip sandwich and I chose the steak and mushroom pie. Imagine that, ordering a French dip in a British restaurant! Feh. I also ordered a fried calamari appetizer.
Our waitress took our order and returned with a basket of warm bread and butter cubes. I found the bread quite dense. I liked the taste, but I didn't like the dense texture much. Our fried calamari appetizer came out shortly thereafter. To my dismay, the calamari plate was about a third smaller than I had expected, and only had cocktail sauce for dipping. I prefer a tartar type of dipping sauce for fried calamari. The calamari tasted good nonetheless.
Once we were done with our calamari appetizer, our waitress brought out our lunches. My steak and mushroom pie turned out to be a bowl of steak and mushroom stew with a piece of puff pastry on top. I had somewhat envisioned a baked on puff pastry crust. It tasted pretty good though, and I ended up dipping most of the puff pastry into the stew. My friend's French dip sandwich came with fries. He said it was pretty good.
Our total bill came out to $28.25 for the appetizer, one soft drink, and two lunches. Service was good, food was good, but a bit different than what I had expected, location isn't too great though.
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