Bedford Belly On Tour: A Bit of A Crack

Tokies

3 Bond Gate, Pontefract, WF8 2JP

S’up!

It was the merry season, food had been chomped, wine had flowed and bellies were stuffed. However, it was now a couple of days after Christmas so the belt had gone back down a notch and we can’t be having that can we.

After a long day of sitting about not doing anything in particular I noticed a take-away leaflet lingering on the side, one I had never seen before on any of my visits to Haribo town (Pontefract is where they make them don’t you know). I pick up the flyer and it reads “Tokies”. Tokies? Is this some kind of drug delivery service?

Not at all, it is a fast food joint. Kebabs, curry, wraps, burgers, milks shakes (the shakes come in loads of flavours like Twix, Wisper, Bounty, Flake, Ferrero Rocher etc.) and pizza! Well who doesn’t love pizza?

I browse the choices, Veggie, ham & pineapple (oh balls no!), mighty meaty (sounds like gay porn), BBQ (what?), blah, blah, blah. I don’t know why I bother really as I always opt for pepperoni. So, I opt for pepperoni. Now to decide on the size. Hmmm, do I go for the 11” for £5.10 or the 18” for £10.00?

Clearly, I’m a greedy bastard so I’m going to go for the 18” and for £4.90 I’m getting an extra 7”. But can I handle 18 inches?

I’m no porn star so this may split me open wider than an axe to a mushy melon but sod it, let’s do it.

I place my order and wait. I’m told it will be with me in 45 minutes but 20 minutes later it arrives. The delivery driver is a shabby looking little fella but polite enough, we do the exchange. My money for the pizza. He says a cheery goodbye and turns to leave, I am just closing the front door when I look up and see it. A full on bare arse, waddling back to the car, the driver’s trousers are that far down his entire bloody arse it smiling at me. It was that hairy that if the light were any dimmer you may have mistaken it for a bears bum! Now the temperature outside was about -1 so there is no way in the world he didn’t realise his arse was on show ([perhaps the mass of tangled hair was keeping it nice and toasty), in fact I’m quite surprised there were fricking icicles hanging from it, perhaps it was some kind of Santa's grotto. Hmm, the grotty grotto. I'm sure the kids would love it!

Anyway, I finally broke off from the hypnotic bum show and closed the door.

The pizza was HUGE! Well, it had to be really didn’t it. You can’t not have a small 18” pizza. You could have crossed the channel on this thing.

The pizza itself was pretty good, sadly a cheddar\mozzarella mix but the base was like a crisp naan and the sausage was delicious (ooh er missus). My only complaint was that it was a bit greasy but if you were getting this after a night out then the 18 inches would slide down quite nicely…. Erm.

Did it break me?

Yes, yes it did indeed. Unsurprisingly I couldn’t finish it, I even gave some away (unheard of)!

I would order form there again and next time I’d like to try one of their burgers and milk shakes but I would hope that next time the only crack I see is the one in the door as I answer it.

A Little Bit of Argi Bhaji

The Panshi Spice
1D Foster Hill Road
Bedford
Beds
MK40 2EN
01234 352276


Well hello there my little belly burpers, and a happy new year to you all!

Me oh my, hasn’t it been a long time. Now don’t take this extended break as a sign that I gave up on take-away’s altogether. Oh no, I just had shit to do.

So let’s get stuck in shall we.

Just before the Christmas break some friends and I had a night in planned. A few beers, a few games and a curry. But where should we go?

Well this was a Thursday night so the best thing to do is get as much fodder as possible for as cheap as possible. The Panshi Spice it is then ladies and gentlemen. You see, The Panshi Spice do a bit of a deal on Thursdays & Sundays, Poppadum, Nan Bread, Rice, Starter, main & side dish for a tenner…. A BLOODY TENNER!

We’d all ordered from there before and the food has always been good. Normally you have to collect with this deal but there was over £50 worth of food here so we wangled a delivery, that was a mistake!

The warning signs were already on the wall when it took us nearly 40 minutes to order the food. Not because the lady ordering had some sort of issue speaking (I mean, she is welsh but that accent has long gone –heh) but because the guy on the other end of the phone clearly could not understand the English language! Now if you’re in the service industry and you take orders via telephone then (and perhaps I’m totally wrong here) you really need someone that can understand what the person on the other end of said phone is saying. I could understand if we’d tried to order our food using fart sounds & bird calls then this may become somewhat difficult to understand and the order might possibly get lost in translation but we were just using the bog standard words printed on the menu we were reading from.

The other issue we had is that when we ordered the side dishes we were told that they were not side dishes and that side dishes were rice dishes. “So let me get this straight you get a poppadum, starter, main course, nan bread and rice as well as a side dish of rice?”

Obviously this was total balls. However, you can see the issue when you look at the menu as nowhere does it say “Side Dishes”, the side dishes are in fact the vegetable dishes listed under the heading “Vegetable Dishes” just to add confusion to what was already becoming a giant ****ing headache. Anyway, we got past this hurdle and carried on trying to order the remaining dishes.

Finally, the food was ordered now we just needed to give an address. After another battle with language the address was accepted and as we nursed the person who ordered back to health with the aid of a mental health worker and psychiatrist we waited… and waited…. And waited…

After about an hour and a half we called them back to ask where the food was and were told it was on its way. More time passed and then the driver called to say he couldn’t find the house number on BLAH BLAH Close. “Blah blah close?” we asked, “We’re not in blah blah close, in fact blah blah close doesn’t even exist in this village. We’re at Whatsist Called Way in the Village of ThisIsWhereWeLive.”

The driver read back the postcode he had, it was wrong. Only by one letter but it was wrong nonetheless. We corrected the driver who said he would turn around and head to us. And we waited… again.

Once again we called them back to see what was going on and to say how unhappy we were with the service & waiting time. That’s when the driver finally turned up. What ensued was an argument of epic proportions as the driver started shouting at us for giving the wrong address on phone, (because either A) We don’t know where we live or B) despite our hunger we like to have our food make a cross country trip so that it arrives late & cold). As the argument heated up we ended up shouting back trying to explain that we didn’t blame the drive but that the guy that took the order was the issue and got the postcode wrong. The driver had no interest in being exonerated of any blame and then argued that he was ONLY 5 miles away… 5 miles! Yeah mate, that’s fine, my plate is only 5 miles from my dinner but I’m not sure I’ve got a fork long enough to reach my bloody starter! Imagine a taxi driver dropping you off 5 miles from your home and then giving you shit for it or someone installing your Nan’s new stair lift in the house next door “Well it’s only across the alleyway, if we install a rope bridge from their bathroom window she can clamber across that when it’s bedtime no problem”. Jesus wept! (Well, it was around Christmas time and he was just a baby so I suppose he would cry a bit).

While all of this was going one someone was on the phone to the manager saying that we would pay a reduced amount for the very late and very cold food which in the end he accepted. We asked him to tell this to the delivery guy who then lost his sh*t saying he would not accept the reduced amount. It was quite frankly a bloody nightmare. I mean, what has happened to customer service? What has happened to “the customer is always right”. This is by far the worst service I have had in years and arguing so angrily with your client is no way to go about ensuring repeat orders in the future.
In the end we paid him a bit more than agreed and he buggered off. Thank god!

I (in my infinite wisdom) had already turned the oven on some while back pre-empting the arrival of cold food. A 20-minute re-cook and we could finally eat.

I think the most annoying part of the whole event is that the food was really good. I had Onion Bhaji, Lamb Rogan & Mushroom Bhaji. Obviously everyone’s dish was different but I took little notice of their orders as I was too fracking hungry at this point and just started shovelling.

I’m a bit conflicted here as food wise The Panshi Spice is my favourite Indian take-away, especially when you’re ordering on deal night as there is so much food for £10.00. Normally Mrs Belly and I would order the deal + one other main as there is enough food for at least two people and the food has always been top notch, I’ve never had Delhi belly nor a burny bum the next day as I have had with other Indian take-outs (so no need to keep that special loo roll in the fridge overnight). I’ve chatted with the owner and he’s a nice guy too I just think that (as previously mentioned) you need to have someone that can communicate effectively on the phone, and a driver who respects the client enough to ****ing apologise for the company’s error would be grand too.

Grilling & Chilling

 The Riverside Grill, 19 Castle Lane, Bedford, Beds, MK40 3NT

 It had been a long old day and Mrs Belly and I were really looking forward to the evening. We’d arranged another meet up with some friends (something we can’t do too often these days) and had booked a table at The Riverside Grill, 8pm sunshine. Don’t be late!

The Riverside Grill is set in a great little location which has been regenerated over the last few years. It used to be a very large scabby car park but has since been turned in to a little food court with a high rise residential complex for the rich & stupid, I’m being a bit harsh there. They’re not all rich.

The restaurant was pretty busy when we arrived although there was a lot of seats sitting empty however this didn’t seem to matter as we were told that they were running behind and would we mind going over to The Lanes (a bar owned by the same guys) for a drink, we were given a 10%b discount card and told that someone would come over to collect us when they had “caught up”.

10% discount isn’t to be sniffed at really but The Lanes is quite a pricey bar and even with a 10% discount you’re still paying above standard bar prices. Obviously you might as well make the most of it so we all ordered a different cocktail, I must say the Purple Rain seemed to be the best of the bunch.

After a little catch up and a 2^nd drink we were finally called next door to our table… one that had been empty when we first arrived. Also it didn’t appear that the place was any emptier than when we’d first arrived. Were we sent over to the bar as some sort of ruse to get us to spend more money than we would have or was it all very genuine? We’ll never know but can only ponder what’s, if’s and buts… not those butts!

I’m not sure what it is about the location but there must be something in the air that causes bad service. All of the places I have eaten at down here seem to have some of the worst waiting staff in all of Bedford. I won’t say they’re not friendly as they are, really friendly it’s just that they seem to take their damn sweet time over everything

The first thing we ordered were drinks which took a little time to come then it took a little while longer for them to take our order. The starters came out pretty quickly but were cold and then the gap between that and the main course was massive!

Since I’d had the shredded duck salad I wasn’t too annoyed that it was cold, in fact I had kind of a preconceived notion that the salad would be served cold since historically salads tend to be cold, therefore my disappointment of a cold starter was instantly diminished due to the fact that I felt no disappointment whatsoever. However, the rest of my table were quite disappointed that their “hot” starters were in fact cold, especially Mr Nose who had ordered the Skewered King Prawns.

When we finally received our main course they were a bit better, I mean nothing was hot but it was still warm and edible. It just felt as if everything had been sat out for 10mins before being served.

As for the actual quality of the food, it was fantastic. There wasn’t a single complaint about taste or the quality of the food at all. My duck salad starter was beautiful, it came served with this amazing dressing which appears to be soy& sesame oil but had more of a Dijon mustard kick to it. I also ordered the Hot Habanero Burger for mains (I think it’s called the triple smoked burger now), a thick and juicy “225g Ground Angus beef, topped with our fiery but fragrant chilli, coriander & red onion relish. Served with Cajun spiced chips”. My only issue with the burger was that it’s served in a wholegrain bap, no burger should be served in a wholegrain bap. It’s just not right.

This is the 2^nd time I’ve visited The Riverside Grill, the first time being when it had not long been open and to be honest this visit was practically a carbon copy of that first visit. Sadly this means that what I initially thought were teething issues are obviously not and just the way the place is run. If they ever get the service sorted and the food is served hot then great stuff, get yourself down there. However, while there are still these issues and you do visit then I would ask for a discount on the meal since you’re paying for what you get and if you’re getting cold\tepid food then you really don’t want to be paying full whack.

MRs Belly went for the Pesto Burger, I’m not a massive fan of pesto but even I thought it tasted great.

My only other bone of contention is the actual room itself, it’s quite a big room and beautifully decked out in a modern style with solid chairs & tables and solid furnishings and that is the problem. Because of how solid everything is it turns the room in to one of those “chatter zones” where the noise of everyone talking can become somewhat overwhelming. You’re trying to hold a conversation with the person sat opposite but can hear more coming from the person sat on the other side of the room than you can of your fellow converse because of eth way the sound bounces around the room. Even the waitress struggled to hear what we were ordering. They either need a few soft furnishings or a couple of acoustic tiles fitted in the right place to dampen the sound.

 

 

Everything In Its Right Plaice

Boundary Plaice, 147 Harrowden Road, Bedford

 Once again the chip shop play on words name game comes in to er…. Play. Place, Plaice. Get it!

It’s lunchtime and after my potato cake breakfast I’m in something of a potato mood. A hankering would probably be the best way to describe my potato fondness this cold, drizzly afternoon. Where should I go? I could go to somewhere familiar but then what would I have to write about? It might be crap and then you’ve wasted your belly space on a bad lunch. It might be great in which case ”hooray” all round and a big pat on the back for a decision well made. It all comes down to you dear chums, I bit the bullet for you and chose somewhere new… for you (and don’t you ever forget it).

Today was about sauntering (and potato’s) and so I did, I sauntered in to the chip shop with determination in my heart (might have been heartburn) and a steely will to match (all of this is entirely irrelevant). I would like some chips please, large chips (as in portion size, I don’t want a 6ft x 4ft chip)… and a large sausage in batter (my weapon of choice. Ok, not so much a weapon but most definitely a choice).

I was served quickly, very quickly. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever been served so quickly in all my life. It was literally walk in to chippy, order, get handed food, pay, leave. I would say I was in there no more than 90 seconds. Please do not get your hopes up at a speedy service when you visit as there was only one other person in the chip shop and she was waiting for her order (not so swift there methinks). I don’t want any of you to be disappointed because you expect to strut in there and get your order in seconds especially when you see dozens of bodies lining up outside the door. I think on that kind of occasion you should be prepared to wait and then wait a bit more and then most likely decide that you don’t actually want chips after all so swiftly shuffle off in to the night, or to the park whichever takes your fancy really. You might even decide to start an impromptu barbershop quartet right there and then. If you do, more power to ya!

Portion: Not bad for a large bag of chips. I’m quite stocky fellow and although I did polish off everything I didn’t feel overly full. You know that kind of fullness where there is initial satisfaction but then it drops in to this kind of heavy feeling, a sweeping food depression if you will? Well that didn’t happen.

Chips: Good chips, this could just have been a lucky batch as I did frequent this Plaice (see, puns!) a few years ago but didn’t think much of it. I found the chips tasted like proper home cooked chips that your mum used to make (this goes for 70’s 7 80’s kids only, I cannot comment on 90’s kids tastes as I was too busy being drunk). A nice rich golden brown colour, crisp edges while not being stiff and brittle. Good fluff on the inside and a proper chip smell to them (I was going to clarify this comment but I thought I would leave it open to ones own particular memory of chip smell).

Sausage in Batter: 50/50. A nice even coating of a especially tasty batter, not to heavy either. Rich colour and great crunch to it. Not too much fat soaked in either. The sausage on the other hand was not great. While not being luminous pink there was a pinky tinge too it as if it was under cooked (it wasn’t but the colour would betray it) and it was a little bit slimey, not oozing with slime but there was smooth slipperiness to it. There was a certain phalicness to it  once the batter was peeled back and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a tribe of unic donkey’s or cattle somewhere out there in the wilderness.

All in all it wasn’t that bad, a 75/100 scoring establishment. A nice little chippy let down the todger like sausages. Obviously there are other things to try if you don’t want to feel like you’re the star of some batter based gay porn movie and I think it’s worth another visit (the chippy not the porn movie… not that I’m saying that I’ve starred in gay porn, I could star in gay porn I guess. I don’t think the wife would be too pleased).

I’m not sure how to wrap this up. Erm… Give it a go, it’s clean, it’s friendly, they have chips. What more could you ask for?

Nothing To Pork About

Jane’s Snack & Sandwich Bar, 243 Bedford Road, Kempston, Beds, MK42 8BP

 
My mother always told me that if you don’t have anything nice to say then you shouldn’t say anything at all. I never did listen to my mother.

It’s a cold October lunchtime, I’m just heading towards the bank when I catch a whiff in the air, a meaty whiff, a bacony whiff. Mmmmm bacon. So in an instant it was decided, I would first go to the bank, make my deposit then slink (as much as a fatty can slink) my over to Jane’s Snack & Sandwich Bar and purchase a sausage & bacon French stick with brown sauce & mustard… it’s a classic!

The café itself is pretty smart, the staff seem friendly enough and the food is cooked to order. Now this is where my mothers advice should kick in. Just to reiterate, I never did listen to my mother.

The lady handed me my order “to go” and I trotted along back to my motor car (“poop poop” – That’s a Wind in the Willows reference for all you Mr Toad fans out there, I am not saying my car is shit!).

I unwrapped the little bag and took a bite, well thank god for brown sauce & mustard is all I can say. The bacon was thick but flavourless and large bits of soggy fat were hanging from its sides. I get that most people love bacon fat but not like this, bacon fat needs to be crispy this was as if someone had stuck the dregs of a liposuction operation to the sides of some very poor meat. It was almost as if this wasn’t real bacon at all and that perhaps it had been made in a warehouse somewhere in Kempston Hardwick by some grubby little ham monkey force to work in some kind of fake meat sweatshop. Honestly, I cannot understand how something that had an aroma that good lacked any taste whatsoever and was just plain disgusting.

Hey, that was just the bacon, at least there’s the sausage to… *blurgh!*, what the hell is that!?! It was what you could technically call a sausage but I’ll bet you a fiver that there is more meat in Pinocchio’s pants that there was in this sausage. As a hobby I make sausages and this thing was more rusk than meat, yes there had to be some meat in there but it was pretty hard to find. It was more like a skin filled with mushy grains of who knows what, again flavourless and just bloody odd all round.

But hey, there’s always the bread right?

Yes, there was bread but again there was something odd about it. The outside was crispy (good stuff) a bit like fried bread (love fried bread) but the inside was just doughy as if it hadn’t been baked properly (Paul Hollywood would have thrown all sorts of insult at it). It reminded me of one of those half baked French sticks you get in the supermarket, you know the ones where you have to go home and finish baking it yourself for double the cost of a fully baked loaf from the bakery.

Something good, something good… As previously mentioned, thank god for brown sauce and mustard. If you like brown sauce and mustard and are passing this café then why not pop in and squeeze a few drops in to your mouth before you toddle off on your merry way…. Keep going… keep going… RUN!

 

The Bedford Belly On Tour: Trinity Kitchen

The Bedford Belly On Tour: Trinity Kitchen, Trinity Centre, Albion Street, Leeds, LS1 5AT

It’s been a while since we’ve been up North and even longer since we’ve had a night out away from Baby Belly (that’s a bit of a lie as she had her first overnight stay with Ma & Pa Belly a few weeks back so we could attend a birthday party but still). So it was with great joy on this rather drizzly night that we had bagged ourselves some babysitters in the form of Ma & Pa Belly in Law.

We had arranged to meet Mrs Belly’s brother & his girlfriend in Leeds city centre to go to some street food event, or that’s what we thought it was anyway.

The new Trinity Centre itself is very deceptive. I recall the last time I was here that the entrance was I think a medium sized Burger King sitting between two other stores. BK is now gone and in its place is the entrance to the centre. To be honest I didn’t even think about it until we stepped inside, it was like we’d just stepped in to the TARDIS from Doctor Who. The place is massive! It’s hard to comprehend how they have managed to pack all of this stuff in to what originally appeared to be nothing but a shop front. I was expecting a small arcade of stores but there were loads of shops, a cinema and the Trinity Kitchen all encased in a multi-level building with glittery lights, chrome and glass fittings and a nice shiny finish.

We met up with my Brother in law, his girlfriend and a couple more pals and headed off to Trinity Kitchen.

The first thing that caught my attention was the music drifting past me before we got there then we hit the Trinity Kitchen which quite simply looks stunning. Neon light strips hang from the ceiling, with chrome piping and extractor fans on display mixed in with wooden support beams and metal frames covered in glass. It reminded me very much of the bar from the 80’s movie Total Recall. A live 3 piece band consisting of banjo, tuba & drums played reworked versions of pop songs including Mysterious Girl, Beat it and a blue grass version of Hotel California. While I enjoyed the band they were a bit loud (although I would say that had more to do with the acoustics of the venue rather than the band itself) and it was hard to hear what people at the table were talking about.

The dining area consists of various food stalls, seven of which are permanent while the others consist of mobile units which to my understanding will be changed each month enabling a wider variety of foods and menus. The permanent stands are Chicago Rib Shack, 360 Champagne & Cocktails, Pho, Tortilla, PizzaLuxe and Chip & Fish. All of these have their own unique style.

The mobile units were serving up gourmet hot dogs, Indian food, Stew & flatbreads and Tea & cakes.

We grabbed ourselves a table and debated what each of us was were going to try out. I had a quick wonder round and decided on Baby Back Ribs, Fries, Coleslaw & a beer from The Chicago Rib Shack which came to about £7.50 (not too shabby). Your order is taken and you’re given a pager which will buzz you when your food is ready. There were the usual burgers etc. on offer here too.

I’ve never been a big rib lover, I tend to find UK ribs are pretty meatless but I was impressed with these bad boys. There was plenty of meat on the bone (good quality too) covered in a thick, delicious BBQ sauce. The fries were really crisp and salty and the coleslaw was as you’d expect it to be but it didn’t really fill me up (because I’m quite frankly a fat bastard) so I stalked the stalls looking for my next victim. My eyes narrowed as I pondered my prey… Mexican? Nah. Hot Dog…. Had one earlier…. Pizza, nah, always have pizza… And then I spotted it… Ah, Vietnamese from Pho’s.

I had a quick scan of their menu and decided to go for the Pork & Lemon grass meatball bun’ with vermicelli noodles. WOW! The bun’ was great. Packed with fresh vegetables & herbs. Every mouthful consisted of a different flavour, BANG fresh coriander, BANG fresh mint, BANG Chilli. The heat from the chilli & sauce was never overpowering though and the meatballs had a crispy texture to the outside while the insides were nice & soft, the lemongrass really came through. I really should have had this first as although the portion wasn’t massive it really was just right and would have filled me up far more than the ribs had done.

Mrs Belly went for something from the Mexican stand (sorry I was too engrossed in my own food to nice what it was) and commented on how tasty and filling was. Everyone else had different things and none of them had any complaints.

It is noticeable that there is no beer on tap anywhere not even at the bar. All beer is bottled (I’m not a fan of bottled beer, overpriced and not enough of it).

Hopefully the sheen will stay at Trinity Kitchen as I really want to go back and try some of the other food stands. If you’re out 7 about in Leeds anytime soon then I insist you give it a visit.

But wait….

The night wasn’t over just yet.

I mentioned beer earlier. Well that’s what we all wanted now. Some beer. Leeds has an incredible amount of bars as you might have guessed but I’m not a big fan of squeezing myself in to some noisy, crowded cattle market. I want to sit down, I want to be able to talk and put my drink on a table that some drunken idiot isn’t going to knock over as he stumbles past all knees & elbows.

One of the guys took us down by the corn exchange to a dimly lit tiny building, a small pub called BrewDog. There was a reasonable crowd but we managed to find ourselves a table. We were all hanging around the bar wondering what to order and I was scanning behind the bar looking at the bottles & pumps for something familiar when the barman approaches.

BM – What would you like?

ME – Not sure, you don’t sell Jeremiah Weed do you?

BM – Not mate, anyway it’s a shit beer!

Got to admit, I was a little taken aback by this quite curt response.

BM – We normally sell beer from our own brewery but this month we have some guest beers.

ME – Great, I still don’t know what you sell though.

BM – Have a look at the menu

He passed me a menu form the bar and stepped back.

Menu? A pub with a drinks menu? Anyway there we all were trying to read this menu typed in 8 point font in a dark bar.

ME – No idea mate, can you just pour me something?

BM – I recommend this.

ME – Fine, I’ll take four.

So he ended up serving us 4 x 2/3 pints (yeah 2/3 pints) of this thick black raspberry stout called (wait for it) Raspberry Beret.

Menu Description: The brew day started pretty badly for our man Jim; it took him over an hour to find the Quantum brewery after the taxi driver took him to the completely wrong end of Stockport. But as soon as he got there he was in the thick of it. With Quantum being a one man brewery Jim was tasked with all the mash work, which he’s described as ‘pleasant’. But luckily all the hard work paid off in this quaffable raspberry stout.  

It was (like its namesake) shite! (I’m not a Prince fan and apologise to all Prince fans out there that do not consider his music to be "shite" I would therefore like you to think of your own parallel to relate it too although it helps if this parallel has something to do with either Raspberry's, Berets or preferably both). I’m a stout fan but this thing was disgusting, I can’t even describe what it tasted like but I tell you this it tasted nothing like a bloody raspberry!

Upstairs was slightly lighter and now we were all sat down we could look at the menu properly. The next beer I chose was pale ale called “Jephers The Big Red Dog”.

Menu Description: After meeting up at the Leeds Beer Festival, the Leeds team and Tom from Hand Drawn Monkey decided to go for something they hadn’t seen before: a red rye saison. Loaded with 15kg of fresh oranges and 10kg of fresh ginger, this beer has an incredible punchy aroma of spiced oranges. Named after the canine-ised version of Hand Drawn Monkey’s mascot, Jephers the Big Red Dog has also been loaded up with additions of Saaz hops and a few handfuls of pink peppercorns, plus extra orange added during conditioning.

Much better although it tasted more like a cold herbal tea. After that I went for a “Pirate Badger Attacks”

Menu description: Aiming their beer squarely at the infamous pirate history of Bristol, these renegades have brewed up an Imperial Brown Coconut IPA. A rare style of beer - as rare as a Pirate Badger some might say - this beer was born from a mad idea and brought to life with the help and expertise of John from Arbor. True to their swabbie roots, the Bristol team took great joy in getting stuck in to the messier parts of the brewing process including breaking up hops and lugging bags and bags of malt.

One of the guys had something called “Dark Matter” which was like drinking a super sour jawbreaker, it was great.

Menu Description: After formulating a massive, eclectic list of suggestions from the staff, including a Spiced Salt Beef Bagel Beer (?), our Shoreditch crew headed to Beavertown to discuss the beer with them. With sour beers having a massive effect on the UK craft beer scene this year, they opted for something that was ‘on-trend’ but also unpredictable: a Berliner Sour Stout. The brew was very different to anything Beavertown had done before and was a real challenge - it ended up taking 3 days to go from the mash to fermenter.

All in all there were some great little inventions in the menu, too many to mention here.

There was some other literature on the table which explained a little more about the Brewery (BrewDog) and about how they hate commercial beer (ah, now the barman’s comment made some sense).

The price on the other hand was a little steep. 2/3 pint on average cost £4.50 while some of the other drinks in the menu cost far more. I think I saw a beer on the main menu costing £25 and another one at £17 (mental), for that sort of money I hope .

I would recommend a visit if you like your beers but beware the power the place has to empty your wallet at an alarming pace, especially if you’re buying rounds!

Most of the beers had quite a high alcohol percentage so it only took a couple to see merriment fall over the group, conversation was lively and audible (which is handy when it comes to having and holding a conversation) and the chuckles came plentiful & heartily.

The night drew to a close far too quickly and as we made our way through the hustle and bustle of the young, old and transvestite street dwellers (burly blokes in mini skirts & cat suits ahoy, well... we were passing through the gay corner of the city) Mrs Belly and I both agreed that the evening had been great from start to finish. And as we were driven away (in a car not by an angry mob) I couldn't help but notice some poor skinny lad honking his guts up in an alleyway... "Ahhh" I thought, "Thank Jebus that isn't me" as I promptly emptied my guts in to the foot well of the passenger seat*.



*I would like to note that I this is a lie, I did not throw up in the foot well of the car we were travelling in but thought it would be a funnier end to the whole review rather than "I went home and everything was fine".

 

Sleeping With The Fishes

The Codfather, 14 Bunyan Road, Kempstons, Beds, MK42 8HP

 

I’m not quite sure what is it about chip shops and puns. Why chip shops? Why do they require a joke name? I know “the Fish and Chip Shop” is pretty boring but why not “Brain’s Fish & Chips”?

Does the name really matter that much?

I would wager that more chippy’s are named using puns than any other fast food sector.

The Cod Father, The Chip Inn, The Frying Squad, Rock N’ Sole

What's next?

Cod This Be Magic? Skid Roe? A Salt & Battery? A Fish Full Of Dollars? Oh Cod Call The Police?

When have you ever seen an Italian place with a pun name?

Pizza Piss, Its Cannelloni in Here, Pasta Its Sell by Date

Or a Chinese?

Wok on Tommy, Phat Fuk, Wong Order

Or a Kebab house?

Heart Donner, Donner Eat that, Sheesh I’m Hungry, AbraKebabra*

*Actually that last one is a real place I saw in Ireland once

Or an Indian?

Curry Up, Tikka Tape Parade, Bhaji Your Way In, Phall-Lick

It’s few and far between that’s for sure.

Name aside it was lunch time and while driving through the fresh, colour filled streets of Kempston I thought “yum, I have soup in the cupboard” followed by the though “Soup? Are you a big knob? Why the hell are you going to eat liquid veg? Look, look over there, that’s a chip shop… go there. Look, it’s called the Codfather so it must be good especially with such a witty bloody name like that… go eat the chips you lardy bugger you know you want to”.

While I mulled over the wise words of by subconscious I found by body had already pulled in to a parking space and had dragged me across the rain soaked road toward the chippy, “Oh, it’s decided then” I thought, and as I pondered as to why the bloke in front of me had a leopard skin tattoo covering his bald head instead of hair I heard my own voice involuntarily speaking the mystical words “battered sausage and chips wrapped please”.

I drove back to the workshop and plated up, slapped a bit more salt and vinegar on and tucked in.

Talking of salt & vinegar. What is it about some chip shop staff and their reluctance to actually put any on your chips. They ask you if you want it, you reply positively and then they hold up the bottle over the chips tip it and then quick as a flash whip it back upright allowing about 2 drops to fall on to the chips.

Then there are those that comply willingly but seem to be fighting against some sort of Harry Potter type magic barrier surrounding your food “Expelviniamas”, they could pour the entire bottle over it and it would simply bounce off and dissipate in the bag.

What can I say about the chips? They look good enough but there was an odd taste about them, it was almost as if I was eating a raw potato. Not that the texture wasn’t fine it was just this lingering flavour. Perhaps it was the fat they were using but I’ve never had anything like it before. I don’t think this is the norm for The Codfather since I’ve eaten from here in the past and never noticed this before, it might be that they have changed supplier of something and this is the result. Either way I wasn’t keen.

The sausage in batter could quite frankly have done with a bit more batter, it was pretty thinly spread. The sausage itself looked appealing, it wasn’t some toxic pink that I’ve seen at other chippy’s and was more of a dark brown, thick mince. The problem was that it just didn’t taste good. It didn’t taste off or anything like that but it was just “meh”. This was my first experience of a battered sausage here, in the past I’d normally had Cod which was the main reason Mrs Belly and myself stopped coming here on a regular basis. The Cod always seemed too wet, covered in soggy batter that would limply cling on to the fish.

My other issue here was the portion size. Normally regular chips pile up on a small tray but here the tray was barely full at all. I’m not expecting mountains of chips but a regular portion anywhere else would be double the size. In reality though it was a blessing in disguise since I didn’t enjoy them anyway.

I think the meal cost me £2.50 or it would have been £2.60 with a drink included which isn’t too bad for a lunch time but still too much for a small portion of bad food in my opinion.

There are other options at The Codfather, fried chicken, kebabs, burgers etc. I’ve not tried these so they may fair better but I have no real inclination to return and test the waters again.

Fingers crossed I won’t find a horse’s head in my bed tomorrow morning.