In search of a perfect club sandwich

A hangover borne of half-price drinks (anything! Even cocktails! Even champagne cocktails! Oh my head...) with our friend Jess in the bars of Bank propelled Polly and I towards the pub on the corner for a recovery lunch. Nothing recovers me more quickly or more effectively than a club sandwich. It is one of my favourite lunches, but it is so seldom done properly, that I've all but given up ordering it. The closest I've come to club perfection was at the now defunct Green at Goose Green. I almost cried when I arrived for a chicken fix one lunchtime, having walked 2 miles in the Peckham heat to find it closed. Forever.

I can be seen regularly in The Carpenter's Arms on Whitfield St, swilling vast quantities of wine down my throat and generally carousing a bit. It's a really nice pub, with three rooms, each more comfortable than the last, but the best thing about it is its proximity to my office. It's handy because it means I can slip out for a livener at pretty much any time of the day, and be back in time to pretend I just went to buy gum or something innocuous like that. The room at the top, The Belle Bar I believe it's somewhat pretentiously named, is my favourite bit, but it's a bit patchy in it's opening times. It has a good terrace for smoking on though, so do persevere.

The club sandwich won't win any awards, (especially not my coveted "chicken club sandwich gold star award for excellence") but it had a very good go at it. Not since the glory days of the Charlotte St Blues Bar have I been so satisfied by a chicken and bacon sandwich. I really do fail to see how meat, salt, fat and carbs can fail to set you back on your feet after a battering by the booze bandit. This one was on granary bread, which is a club-sin as far as I'm concerned, and also contained no tomato, again a poor show. But I was made generous by the fragility of my mental state, and I'd award the sandwich a 7/10. Chips were good but their main benefit was that there were lots of them.