This is like a rest area along a busy highway, but with a fabulous beer selection. Actually, calling a British-style pub like The Rose and Crown a \"rest stop\" is an unfair characterization. The place is actually quite lively, has a great front porch and rustic interior, decent pub grub and a myriad of ways to slake your thirst. The location in Heritage Square has made it my default pit stop when I'm in dowtown Phoenix for other reasons, however.\n\nAnd that's the beauty of the location. After an Adults' Night Out at Arizona Science Center, my posse inevitably winds up here. Following a day of drinking at a local beer festival or light rail pub crawl, my posse drifts here. It's also a great spot to keep that buzz going with a fresh pint, or the pause that refreshes, where you can get some real food in your gullet and live to drink another day. It's not a bad place to catch a cab too, since there's a convenient curbside loading area for just such an instance.\n\nLet me say a few things about the beer and food. The food offered here includes British pub favorites like Bangers & Mash and a Scotch Egg. Being a big fan of the Scotch Egg, I had to try this one. It's hard to beat a hard-boiled egg wrapped in pork sausage and rolled in bread crumbs and then deep-fried. As my English friend used to remark, \"It's more than a snack!\" and indeed it is. The Rose and Crown serves the egg elegantly sliced into eights (for sharing, perhaps). And it comes with a pickled relish which is hard to describe... but tasty. The other food item I'ved sampled here and that I can recommend are the Pub Wings. They are a decent pile of meaty buffalo style wings with a pretty good vinegar \"bite\". When this hot mound winds up in your face (and should you be so fortunate... but enough about your personal life), sniff carefully. All too many times I've made the rookie mistake of inhaling whilst sniffing and then lapsing into the inevitable \"wing cough\" from accidental aspiration of the vinegary wing sauce vapor . I once had an order of wings here that were tangy enough to evoke the wing cough from the table behind me.\n\nI consider the Rose and Crown a great downtown Phoenix landing pad from which to appreciate fine beer and pub culture.
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