Beef burger and pint of bitter

Beef Burger and pint of bitter

11.60Gbp

3/5

Couldn't find the rotate button, soz

Righto, so today we have a pub meal; beer & burger. Had this beast after spending the week Mersey side, living the Liverpool dream. After a bit of a drive from Forest Row and a stop off including the aforementioned average Americano, we made it to Liverpool, where I had no reviewable food, until we had left and I had this burger and beer at a pub just out of Shakespeare country (Stratford-upon-Avon).

We stayed in a nice wee cottage on the site of Lord Levers mansion. The same place as some guy that won Big Brother had a wedding and Wayne Rooney once had a party. ANYWAY, Lord Lever is most famous for being the "Lever" part of "Unilever" who pretty much make everything toiletry. Here's a quick history lesson, from what I can remember,

The guys best known, socially, for building 'Port Sunlight" for his workers (kinda like Mr. Cadbury I hear), a nice wee village where all of his workers received a cottage, although also had to adhere to somewhat strict rules, otherwise they'd be given the boot. We/he stayed in Thornton Hough, a village he built for his managers, naturally it had bigger houses than Port Sunlight, unfortunately  these days it doesn't have a dairy to get a paper (although the breakfasts at the town hall arn't too bad)

Don't worry we stayed in a cottage, not quite the manor,

When Lever wasn't getting caught in controversy for using slave labour to harvest palm oil in the Congo, he indulged in Freemasonry, getting to one of the highest ranks, which presumably came with a pretty awesome handshake.

From the door of his manor he had a straight private road that would take him right to the door of his factory, I get a slight hint of elitism from what I've read, but he seemed pretty well looked upon for building places for his workers by my great uncles/aunts that lived around there so maybe he was OK.

All that said, he's probably be best know for sleeping outside, covered only by a glass roof on the top of his manor so he wouldn't get wet...

While we where staying in the cottage there was a bit of a mosquito plague, on account of being surrounded by farm land and constant rain. One night I managed to knock off 8 or so of them in a violent 1am rampage. Just in case you were wondering about my issue of bugs here.

the road was a wee bit flooded so I took a detour
through the road on the way back from a wander

Liverpool isn't a bad place but the pace is complete contrast to that of London (compare the atmosphere of Orkland to Dunedin). It calls itself the "European Centre of Culture", probably because the Beatles came from there. Liverpool seems to be all about the Beatles,their football teams (Everton & Liverpool) and maybe trips to the pub to get away from the missus and have some two quid pints.

As a place Liverpool seems to be in recovery mode. Once a great hub for UK shipping and a huge centre for industry (up to the beginning of the 20th century). Come containerisation and moving production off shore, there's a lot of abandon space with a bit of a rundown feel about it. Especially when heading out of the city centre.

the Liver building (said Ly-ver), named after a prevalent red weed.

To my surprise there is a place called New Brighton in Merseyside, all these years I figured New Brighton in CHC was named after Brighton (South England), but perhaps not. The New Brighton in Liverpool was eerily similar to that of East CHC, after having had a bit of money spent on it, it still felt depressing and isolated. Hopefully Liverpool as a city will continue to grow as it once did and not become another reflection of the New Brightons.

SOo this brings me to the burger. On the way back we stayed a lovely hotel, with a rather cool old, abandon(ish) church onsite, complete with grave stones. Unfortunately I didn't get a ghost hunt in, as it looked like the sort of place that could have a bit of a haunting going down, if my readings of Goosebumps are an accurately reflection of all things ghosty and monster-ey.

Owned by the Shirleys, apparently Shakespeare may have peed in the garden (so I was told).

NOW TO THE CASE AT HAND. The burger was OK. There seems to be a bit of a trend here for burgers to be a bit deconstructed, I mean, could that not have put the salad in the burger? Also the salad/pasta salad/caulslaw stuff seemed like it had been scraped off the plates of diners the previous night. On the upside it was a genuine 16thish centenary pub, with a low ceiling, dodgy flaw and genuine Crapper bog.

The other case at hand is the beer, which wasn't to bad. It seems the best beers I've had here are the ales, other that the fact they all taste a bit like homebrew, are fairly flat and are served room temperature. The cool thing is pubs here have different local ales from one to another on tap which gives me good reason to try out all the pubs I can find (I don't mean all, the country seems to have one on every corner, but yous know what I mean).

Anyway, it was an average meal, but kept me satiated until we made it back down to Sussex.

Americano

Americano

1.70Gbp

1/5

The coffee that takes the blame for all my bad coffees, Jesus coffee if you will...

Coffee, I never though I was all that much of a coffee snob, I liked a good long-black, but thought they were all much the same. I think in the end I was right... but only in New Zealand. Don't get me wrong, I've had some less than amazing coffees, but the mighty NZ, ('specially Orkland) have fairly consistent coffee, according to my pallet.

I was on the tube a week or so ago (after missing the last train home, and having to ask an acquaintance in London if I could stay at his...) and chatted to a guy who worked with a guy from ChChurch and said that it was a bit of a Kiwi thing to whinge about the state of coffee, so I feel bad saying this, but it's hard, near impossible to get a decent coffee here. FIRSTLY, you ain't going to find many places that don't think your just having LOLS asking for a long-black, SECONDLY the few places that do them are "Kiwi" cafes, and one doesn't fly around the world for that...

The final part of my whinge is that an Americano (kinda close to a long black) at one place maybe pretty much a Double Espresso, at others will be a big Black Coffee, it's a painful, often disappointing lucky dip.

The beast pictured above was a sort of murky thing, neither here nor there, I think the barrister slipped a little milk in, half heartedly, so it's no white nor black. To be honest it's one redeeming feature was that I got it in a lovely, sleepy village (Kineton?), like many dotted around this country, rich in history, just not rich in coffee finesse.

One day I'll be all grown up and not get mah LOLS from this...

While we're on the subject of fox pee (sorry for this abhorrent segue, I really am!) but I've had a wee checklist of wild-life I wanted to see, which I've just finished...

Firstly was the squirrel. These strange beasts, a cross (probably) between a rabbit and a mouse was something that rates pretty highty in the novelty rating (think of all those songs, albums and films they're known for?). Can't remember the first one I saw, but can remember getting kinda excited about hearing they had been running around the backyard to the amusements of the cats; squirrels are fairly common here and seem happy to reside in tree's in central London, don't tell Boris though, as I think he might come up with a way to charge them for their multi-million dollar views...

Next was the Fox. Guess these guys are pretty common too and also share the squirrels taste for the high life in London. I saw one in Camden once (central London), I was pretty drunk at the time, but was pretty sure it was a fox. Word on the street is they come out at dawn & dusk and search through bins on a fruitless hunt for the dregs of a decent coffee. The legend goes on to suggest that when they find one they turn into some awesome man beast. Think thriller. It has happened only that once...

Lastly is the bat. A cross between a mouse and a pigeon. It took a while to see a couple of these flying mouse things, as they prefer to keep it rural, but they're out there. Unless it was just a busy night for batman, but will we ever know for sure, he like's to keep these things quite.

Kineton, the mean streets.

The're are also wild deer down Sussex way. They add a quaintness to the area, which the place already has in spoon-fills. I've heard that if your driving and happen to survive hitting one, that you're not allowed to take the corpse, instead the car behind you is the one that is allowed venison caserol... just in case you were wondering...

I like how they too are unsure about the title.

My quest to find a decent kitshless coffee endures. On the wildlife front, I would still like to see a snake. I've also have been chased by a wasp from the south to the north, I think it maybe the same one. If any one has any tips on how to get rid of it, I'm all ears...

Fish Burger

Fish Burger

1.79Gbp

3/5

The choice of crumbed fish was a bit unusual by NZ standards....

Have spent a bit of time trying to get through all the museums around London; there any number of them on every topic you could never want. Around the corner from where this par fish burger came from was a museum of typography. I decided that as much as a museum like this could maybe be interesting to someone, the fact that I write in whatever the default is made me think it would be all a bit over my head.

A quick review of the museums I've been to would(does) read:

British Museum: Pretty much all of the ancient world, nicked by the Brits and now in one place for your viewing pleasure.

War Museum: Genocide, some really big guns and a wee bit more genocide for the lols, (those jews eh!??)

Natural History Museum: Rocks, lots of rocks, some crystals that came from rocks and a few bones that came from aforementioned rocks.

V&A: Nice stuff designed for rich people and how the upper crust has lived over the last aages.

I've eaten many a fish burger in my time, I think a perfect fish burger should have fish (and buns, two) tartar sauce, something green &crunchy and onion. The above had all the above other than the knunga but somehow wasn't anything to special, bought from a place a bit down from that tube station where police shot that guy wrongly and where they hold riots every ten years, the streets did feel a bit meaner.

I think what made this burger only average was that the buns were a bit soggy, it just felt a bit like they guy who made it was a bit bored, and maybe that's the secret to a good fush burger, bit o' luv? maybe...

While I was over on the wrong side of the Thames I tried this drink called Supermalt. Possibly the horribleist think I've ever drunk, tasted like half brewed beer with no fizz. Also needed a bottle opener to get into it, which meant opening it on a fence and getting the very sticky contents all over myself. Keep classy Clapham.

Getting over to Brixton(ish) was made pretty easy by the amazing tube network here, it makes the place so easy to get around, who would have thought a city heaps bigger than Auckland would be much easy to navigate. The thing that grinds my gears are the constant "mind the gap reminders" though, they're everywhere, on boats, trains, buses probably and  reckon British Airways uses them too. I think it's a ploy to bring in tourist money, as there's nothing as quintessentially London than "Mind the Gap", and if you can get that on a tote bag, then you totally just "done" London. I've hopefully got a wee way to go before I make it to that stage...

Not quite "far out" but we're getting close.

On the subject of advertising and tourists have been to a few Olympic things, which has been pretty cool, saw the babes at the Beach Vollyball, tried to work out what was going on with the horsies at the Dressage and watched super fit people run around a field and some less fit people throw some frisbees at the athletics. All have been pretty cool, albeit super commercialised with more security procedures to go through than boarding an aeroplane. Still haven't seen any celebs, or more importantly eaten with some celebs and taken a snap of the meal and reviewed the shiz out of it, perhaps in time.

Some goof slept through the marketing lecture on brand association.

Hopefully in the future I'll find a meal that can bust a 4/5, could be a while, but we'll get there. Haven't managed to find a bacon and egg pie here yet, maybe that'll be the game changer...