The Central Manchester Slow Pub Crawl - Day 11
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Day 11 - Thursday 31st July 2003 (Map) Pub 76 - Tribeca (Sackville Street) Spaceman is absolutely bang on time, but barney saunters in over 10 minutes late (due to a lack of ability to find the place first time). Spaceman is left stood by the bar with two pints (Carling, £4.90 for the pair) cursing barney's tardiness. Still, it's a nice place, Tribeca - very chilled out and one of spaceman's faves. There are comfy seats, chilled out music, even beds! There appear to be four areas - the main area, the purple lounge, the red lounge and, downstairs, Bed (which is currently shut, but will open at 9:30pm for 80s night on Thursday, shutting at 2pm). Bed is unique as you can lie down on beds, supping your beer. Now that is chilled.
Barney likes the bar here - it's large and accessible. It's also busy tonight, and we can't find a seat to perch our lazy arses on, so we make do standing by the window, where barney is satisfied with the cool breeze - the speed walk here has made him rather warm. We take a quick peek at the menu, which seems to be vaguely Tex-Mex/American-stylie. We don't have to go far for the next place as it's virtually next door...
Pub 77 - Gaia (Sackville Street) A first visit for both spaceman and barney, this place is nowhere near as busy as Tribeca. We get two pints of Castlemaine for £5 and head downstairs to a more lounge-y area, which is done up in cream and brown, and the obligatory chilled out music drifts across the speakers. Spaceman is distinctly dissatisfied with his lager - it tastes revolting and disturbingly like the worst lager in the world, Crystal (see The Crown and Anchor). It's rank. So much so that spaceman marches back up the stairs and asks for it to be swapped (for a Stella). Barney, meanwhile, puts up and shuts up, although when spaceman returns, barney wants a Stella instead as well. Too late. Bottles of wine are £5 between 5pm and 7:30pm. The toilets are okay. And off we go...
Pub 78 - The Rembrandt (Canal Street) Another maiden visit. The downstairs has sparse seating so we get our beers and head upstairs. Two pints of Holsten Export were £5 - the other lager available was called 'Golden'. Spaceman is slowly realising (slow realisation is spaceman's speciality) that you should never trust a lager that is just a standard word, e.g. Golden, Crystal, Diamond. We sit down by the window and have a nice enough view of Canal Street, if a little blocked by lots of trees. It's very quiet upstairs.
There are hotel rooms available it seems. Plus, as barney, always observant, points out, at either end of the upstairs bar, there is a "pets' corner" and a "camp corner". Interesting. All meals are £4.95 and look like good old-fashioned home-cooked English selection. You can also get 2 meals and 2 glasses of wine for £10, a bargain in anyone's book. As we leave the place, barney, the crazy fool, notes that there was only one girl there while we were present...
Pub 79 - Via Fossa (Canal Street) Two pints of Kronenbourg set us back £4.40, although barney asked for Fosters, so relatively cheap. We head down two sets of stairs to the bottom floor (the middle floor is really only a half-floor) in search of seats. Barney counts seven girls on the way to our seats (clearly on girl-watch for this evening). Spaceman rushes off to the toilets again (once you start...) and finds that they have had a refurbishment. They used to be a bit smelly but they're now a lot better. Barney bangs on again about the ratio of women in here to those in the Rembrandt. There's a restaurant upstairs from the main bar, so really there are sort of four levels. But enough is enough and our pints have been finished...
Pub 80 - Bar 38 (Canal Street) Absolutely deserted in here. It's always struck spaceman how some places on Canal Street can be so empty yet stay open. They are always busy on Friday and Saturday nights, but is that enough? Anyway, it's £4.60 for two pints of Fosters, and we have no trouble in getting served. There is a two-for-one offer on food but then we find that only side orders are available, for some reason. We were tempted by the two-for-one offer until we discovered that only chips and stuff were available. The two visible members of staff disappear downstairs and we mischievously consider nipping behind the bar (we're the only ones here). But then someone suddenly appears to quash any of barney's fantastical plans to pinch an bottle of alcopop...
Pub 81 - Churchill's (Canal Street/Chorlton Street) Oh dear - it's karaoke night tonight. It seems to be full Freddie Mercury look-a-likes - perhaps there's a competition going on? Two pints of Fosters are purchased for £4.80. We find a seat but the space is swiftly reduced as a couple decide to sit at the end of our table. It's another place that is fairly obviously lacking in the typical proportion of females. There are straight places and gay places - this is place is quite gay. (This is no bad thing, necessarily, it's just not too subtle.) Barney drains a beer a little more quickly than usual and we head back out into the night...
Pub 82 - Slug & Lettuce (Canal Street) It's a very familiar place this - perhaps too familiar. Two pints of Fosters are £4.90 (we think - certainly no more than £5). Barney eyes up a group of 6 girls or so at a table, but they leave before any approach is made. It's not very busy really in here, but it's quite a popular place for lunchtimes and, like all Canal Street bars, on Friday and Saturday nights. Barney turns down the challenge of table football - god knows why. (Maybe a good decision given our rapidly decreasing hand-to-eye co-ordination.) Barney mentions about this Slug & Lettuce (there's on Albert Square too) closing down. The barman does not deny this - but they're currently in limbo. We'll see...
Pub 83 - Velvet (Canal Street) Our final pub of the night and we may or may not have had two pints of Carling for about £5. Another quite cool place this. Barney points out that there are lots of women out with other women (spaceman thinks a changing of the record is in order...). It's more of a restaurant than a bar really, with a good, varied menu. Definitely worth a look. We briefly, drunkenly, consider the possibility of making it to the last place along the line on Canal Street, Taurus, but the beers are going down too slowly, and we're getting tired. We'll pick it up at Taurus next time around, but for now it's time to return home (via the chippy round the back of Canal Street).
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