the original tank and paddle restaurant made it into my top five pizza spots in london, so when i'd heard that they'd opened a second (and that there's soon to be a third opening) one on bishopsgate, conveniently on my way home, and that there was a giant shuffleboard table in the upstairs dining room, well.. it was definitely worth squeezing in one last pizza date between my two end-of-summer holidays last month.
as with the original, the whole tank and paddle concept is craft beer, fresh pizza, fun games - and their offer does exactly what it says on the tin. and, depending on what day of the week you go, you can treat yourself to a daily offer that ranges from dough.m.g. monday (where all pizzas are £5) to tap twelve sunday (where a pizza and two beers will set you back twelve quid), and nothing in between is over a tenner - and includes £2 pints.
sadly, the menu hasn't changed from old to new, so the options were still the same as before. which is fine, except the pizza itself wasn't great this time round (too overcooked and a little flavourless), though the mac and cheese was as i remembered it. to be honest, i reckon it's great that the restaurant offers such good deals on their food and drink, because i don't feel great about paying full price for the pizza there after this visit. the sides and drinks were great, but the highlight of our visit - in hindsight - was the entertainment on offer.
each table has its own array of board games (or drinking games) for diners to play with while they wait (or, instead of eating), and on this particular night i was grateful to discover "what do you meme?", a "cards against humanity"-style card game that asks you to match your word cards to the meme image card. thankfully it's not as dark and terrible as the former, but myyyy oh my, did it have us chuckling over dinner! and then there's the shuffleboard; i'd never played, but thanks to the larger than life game rules above the board, we got the hang of it in no time. and, turns out it's harder than you think! but, all in the name of fun.
so, yeah. it's a great place to go for a beer and pizza - if you aren't too fussy about your pizza, but are pretty fussy about your beers, and especially if you have great taste in retro board games. but definitely try to go on a monday, where the pizzas are only a fiver.
*we were guests of tank and paddle, but all words are mine.
