Ghost town

Last nigh I decided to just hang out around Bracknell, London is an hour train ride and I feel that if I get out after 6 it's not worth riding all the way into the city just to eat and come back. I went to Reading the other night so I didn't want to do that again. I searched online and found a bunch of music venues in Bracknell, all in an area called "the Ring", so I figured I would walk around and see what I stumbled into.

What I stumbled into were tumble weeds, not literally but figuratively. This town is dead at night, from my hotel I walk past a college and a pub called "The Manor House" to get into the center of town so you figure in a college town there would be a night life. Plus with all the music venues you would assume that too. However, the night life, music venues and night clubs are only open on Friday and Saturday nights. During the week you get a nice quiet walk past lots of closed shops and buildings. I was so stunned when I saw Burger King closed at 8pm that I had to start taking pictures of the empty wasteland that is Bracknell at night.

Speaking of pictures, I uploaded a bunch of pictures from January, February and March onto my Flickr.

Walked through the dead zone and came out near the train station, the only thing open there is "the goose" which is a pub with less than fantastic looking food. I decided after walking around for a while to go back to the manor house. They had a sign up saying favorite beer spot of 2010 so I figured I'd give it a shot. I went in and they had maybe 20 different beers on draft and their menu looked pretty impressive. I ended up getting a mozzarella fishcake as a starter and a bacon cheddar burger as my main. One thing I love about being here is the sustainability of the food, all meat is grass fed as I said before and most places sell line caught sustainable fish. The nicer part is that the menus will clearly say that, for example the fishcakes were called "line caught haddock cake with italian aged mozzarella cheese". When I ordered the burger the bar keep tells me I get a free drink with that, I'm thinking soda, turns out it's beer! I had a Lomond Gold Ale which is an Organic English Bitter, I know beer advocate only gives it a C+ but I thought it was good, maybe the people on beer advocate don't like that type of ale? After that beer I had a Ruby Red Hot Chili IPA which is by the same company "Traditional Scottish Ales", I can't seem to find that one on Beer Advocate. Hoyle, if you're reading this, don't get that beer in hopes of being up to your standard of IPA. It is a very good beer, probably better than the Lomond Gold but I would not call it an IPA. It's got a very smooth flavor and a very smooth finish, there is a hoppy flavor but certainly not when used to the Bastards.

Tonight they are having the Manor House is having their Curry Club which is 6 GBP for curries and a beer, I know it's not as cool as wandering around London but I might just go there tonight depending on what time I get out of class. I'll keep you posted.