The Mint is typical of The City; with modern decor, clean spaces and an overall upmarket look. However, it adds a twist to the usual City pubs with Thai food and fairly cheap wine.

The Venue
The Mint is a quite large, modern pub with lots of standing space. Furniture is scarcely scattered on the ground and first floor balcony. Glass walls and an outside patio overlook East Smithfield road but, unfortunately, it is hardly a pretty sight unless you’re here on the day of the London Marathon when you’ll easily be able to see the runners.

It’s furnished with modern couches and wooden furniture placed around a marble top isle as a grand ironwork chandelier dangles from the ceiling. The back of the bar is decorated with wooden panels inspired by church furniture. On the indoor balcony, two pool tables and a second bar keep customers entertained.

The Atmosphere
Unsurprisingly, corporate sums up the atmosphere of The Mint. The vast majority of punters are City workers gathering in easy-to-predict patterns. Monday to Wednesday the pub is almost empty, getting crowded only during Thursdays and Fridays: peak times are after 6pm when the suits and ties swarm out of air conditioned offices. On Saturday and Sunday – a sad trend for The City – The Mint is closed for lack of customers.

As a consequence of the rigid weekly ritual, the place lacks personality. It seems very much an extension of an office space. Occasionally though, the suits and ties need to celebrate and the place sparkles with alcohol-based life.

The Food
In line with the tradition of this part of East London, The Mint serves only a bare minimum of English food to leave space for Thai cuisine. Soups, curries, stir fries, and noodles are customisable with a choice chicken, beef, pork, vegetable, prawn, or mixed seafood. Beside tom yum, pad Thai, and red and green curry, they also serve less common traditional Thai food like pad priew wan - a sweet and sour dish with onion, pineapple, red and green pepper, tomato, cucumber, and spring onion.

The ingredients seem to be almost the same in every dish, but miraculously the flavours are quite different. Prices are very reasonable with curries, stir fries and noodles all in the £5.25-£7 range, including sides of rice or noodles.

The Drink
The Mint is a Fullers pub but do not expect monobrand boredom here. They serve all the regular lagers, including a good extra cold selection, with Grolsch, Carling, and Carlsberg, alongside ESB and London pride on draught; and Discovery, Sol, Coors Fine Light in bottles. The prices of their pints are strangely listed by the half pint - probably to hide the fact that prices aren’t cheap! Half a pint will set you back £1.55-£1.70 whilst bottles are £3.15-£3.40.

A few wines make a guest appearance even if with Thai food, most punters opt to gulf down a beer. Less than ten in total, the most intriguing wine is a red Hostens Picant. Prices in this case are quite good with bottles priced at £11-£20.

The Last Word
There are good and bad points about The Mint, with the atmosphere being a potential letdown. You’ll be a fan if you work in The City and cannot unplug from work, or if you just want to breath the corporate air.

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