Chris_OGrady

I managed to get a booth when I went to the Crown but couldn’t get into Bittles! Some great pubs in Belfast, also rated Maddens and The Garrick

Did quite a few taprooms in New York last week: Other Half, Talea, Wild East and Fifth Hammer- all excellent. I had a cask ale in two of them which was on the money and served with a sparkler! It’s quite hard to find sessionable 4/5% beers out there, and the hazy IPAs at 7% are so easy to drink. I can’t work out if the regular crowd are absolute pissheads or treat beer like wine

Obv delving into enemy territory... but the Plough in Wysall and White Lion in Rempstone are both great village pubs. Both freehouses too

Went to the Brunswick in Derby for the first time yesterday. What a fantastic pub. It wasn’t very busy though which was a shame. Did The Alexandra Hotel too which was decent, but a bit tired

Just got back from Italy and spent a night in Naples. Had heard very mixed review but i really liked it. The coastal setting is amazing with Mount Vesuvius in the background and there's some really nice architecture too. I've done a lot of Italian cities and it feels distinctly different from the rest. There's obviously some ropey areas but I didn't really see any of these. The best thing about it is that it feels like a chaotic Italian city where the centre is actually lived in, rather than a theme park for tourists.

Get yourself over to Brooklyn. Great food and beer and you get the best views of Manhattan. You can get bikes and cycle down from Dumbo to Strong Rope Brewery for some beers and great views, and then go Hometown BBQ for food (queues can be big). As someone else mentioned, Other Half Domino Park is good for beer and you're close to L'industrie, Best Pizza, and Aces for pizza too (you can try a slice from each). Los Tacos No1 do really good Tacos and have quite a few branches in Manhattan. Try and use the ferries as much as possible as you get amazing views.

For any London heads, there's a decent new place by City Thameslink called the Paternoster Tavern who do their own keg beer for a very reasonable £5 a pint. Did the Guinness London tour yesterday which was decent, but overpriced for what it is (luckily I wasn't paying). Diageo don't reveal what hops they use in Guinness as they allegedly want to keep the recipe "secret". Some more clever marketing for the gullible Guinness fanboys. Hops are the most expensive ingredient in beer. They basically just buy the cheapest hops they can find each year as it's mass produced, low quality beer. If you go to a proper brewery they can't wait to tell you what hops go into each beer.

My wife, mum and sister always moan about how dodgy Leicester is, and how many strange characters there are, whenever they go to the curve theatre. I really struggle to convince my wife to go for a drink and some food in Leicester because of this. My Mum and sister would likely refuse to go in for the same reason too. They would maybe be happy to go to the Highcross but nowhere really outside of that (unless it's the curve) and I've got no interest going into Leicester for a Nandos. Now they might be exceptions, but i think they are probably not. This is clearly having an impact on the city. It's fine on Saturday when we all go in for the football and drink in the pubs, but outside of that it's dying, and it's a snowball effect with many of the clientele it needs actively avoiding it, and those subsequent businesses not being able to survive.

If you want good beer, the White Hart opposite is great

Hopefully it's changed hands in the last few years because I went 3 or 4 years ago and thought it was pretty poor

I got hacked a few months ago. They got into my O2 account and did a sim swap, and were then able to get into my email account. I managed to spot it fairly early which limited the damage. I've changed passwords and tried to add 2FA to stuff since. You can search in the below if your email or password has been leaked (it's not spam) Have I Been Pwned: Check if your email address has been exposed in a data breach

Same here- decent prices too. Wintertons in Mountsorrel is also good, but more expensive

If i was loaded, i'd buy the Talbot and try and turn it into a CAMRA style pub offering local and independent beers. The pub itself has everything you need, it just needs to sell good beer. I'd then keep Naaz and his wife on at the back restaurant serving up authentic Indian food. It would be the ultimate one stop shop. Have a pint of Blue Fox on cask before heading into the restaurant for some top notch Indian food. Ultimately, the pub would never work because of the location but it's good to dream

Niceone, let me know how you get on. I'm going to My Delhi in the city centre at the weekend

be interesting to see how it compares to Istanbul in Barrow

That Antalya must be new. Right next to Organ Grinder as well - perfect. Will give that a try! Noodle bar is okay, does a job. I go there with my wife because she won't go to the Szechuan, which is miles better and does authentic well priced Chinese food (very basic inside though).

yeah that's it. If you type in Naaz Ka Dhaba on google maps you should see it. It's got 13 reviews.

It's very different and feels like somewhere you'd get abroad with the husband and wife running the show and personally attending to you. You'll enjoy having a beer in the Talbot before even with the incredibly naff beer selection.

Naaz Ka Dhaba at the Talbot. It's very different. Certainly not one to take the Mrs

Went here on Saturday. Wasn't sure what to make of it to begin with, but it won me round by the end. The food was very good. The value was insane at £85 for four people (excluding drinks) and there was still enough for each of us to take some home. We were speaking to the chef and his wife, it turns out he was the original chef at the Broadway when it first opened, which makes sense as the food has never quite been as good at the Broadway since the first time that i went. It wasn't the busiest but picked up a bit as the night went on. They're not active on social media at all and don't seem to do any marketing. Great recommendation, and will deffo go back! Hopefully it survives. The Talbot itself could be a great pub but is in completely the wrong area. Feels like a proper traditional village pub.

I did a "food tour" when i was in Bologna and thought it was largely uninspiring. I did enjoy the city though, felt far less touristy than Florence.

Was in Whitby at the weekend. Lots of good micropubs and quirky places to drink in. Did Beer O'clock, Whitby Brewery, Meeting Room (converted methodist church) and Esk Vaults. Didn't do any proper pubs but they all looked fairly standard.

I think the Briton is now run directly by Heineken after they managed to turf out the old landlord. I take it they're doing a good job for once?

Did a walls of York pub crawl yesterday which was good fun. The Swan and Phoenix probs the pick of the bunch. Swan reminds me of Three Pigeons in Halifax. Yorkshire is the best place for pubs and beers in the UK for me, and I haven’t even done Sheffield properly yet. In Whitby next weekend.

If Rachel ends up going it's worked perfectly for Stephen. He can go in on James being the other traitor and also put suspicion on Jade and Jack for changing their votes. A traitor would always want to be alone in the end game and give the faithful a traitor, so he can also play on that too. If James goes, he's still got an outside change. Rachel has no chance. I think he did the right thing