(2/10) 
There's one good dish on the menu at The Bear: Welsh Rarebit. The chairs are comfortable too.
Right, that's the compliments out of the way. Down to business.. Never before have we been so scandalised by a place which deserves to be great, even has a decent reputation, but which delivers near to zilch.
There might be a nice beer if you're lucky - 'Whippet Wars' was the mediocre tap this visit - but the chances are you won't find anybody to serve it to you. How can a hotel employ so many staff yet never have anyone behind the bar? The wine's crap too and it's all overpriced.
As for the food, what a dismal selection. This may be a bar menu but gone are the days of bland sandwiches (no doubt served with half a pack of ready salted), a few 'roasts' and a token oriental dish. As it was Sunday we tried roasts beef and lamb. Both had clearly not seen an oven for at least 6 hours (in fact we couldn't even tell which was which) and the Yorkshire Puddings would have passed for profiteroles with a splash of chocolate sauce. The 'Thai' curry was an insult to the whole Asian continent with its sickly creamy texture, no discernible vegetation, and rice with all the charm of boil-in-the-bag. Please let it not have been that.
In short, go to this place if you're desperate to sit down for five minutes, perhaps if you were walking past and a flower pot fell on your head, but forget about eating there.
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Once upon a time - increasingly a far-distant memory ago - the Bear was a half-decent place to stop in and have a coffee and bite to eat. Nice and central, doing a decent* pint and usually replete with a roaring fire, it was - whisper it quietly - not too bad at all.
So it really beggars belief as to how the food has quite got so appalling, quite so quickly.
I've eaten at the Bear three or four times in the last few months. Every time, I think, "oh, come on, *this* time it'll be OK". (It's also pretty much the only place in the 'bridge that serves on a Sunday evening). And every single time the chef manages to break my heart in a faintly spectacular manner. Witness:
* Chicken korma, off the bone (a la Cardiff chip alley) boiled to death in coconut milk and nearer some of curious chicken-rice pudding hybrid than curry.
* A 'premium' mature cheddar, red onion and apple chutney sandwich that in fact consisted of grated supermarket cheddar and - wait for it - big chunks of Granny Smith.
* Sweet chilli sauce that could have passed as sugar syrup, so lacking was it in any chilli whatsoever.
* And worst of all, chicken "teriyaki" that proudly featured gobbets of chicken breast glazed in honey, grilled and basted in more honey, then slathered in honey, all with a dainty coriander leaf on the top. Drizzled in honey.
Don't go there. Please. Save your palate, wallet and soul and buy some pasta and a bottle of wine from Spar next door.
* Never ACTUALLY stop in at The Bear for a drink, either. Go to the Vale - it's much more fun.
Just to keep up-to-date, there has been a refit recently. Everything else is just as crap as ever. Full marks for consistency at least.