Thursday, February 17, 2005
stranraer pub
"do you wanna meet for a pint?"
"yeah, where"
"the pub"
"duh obviously...which one?"
"the pub"
"which one?"
"the pub pub"
maybe it hinders things...
5 pics of stranraer here
Fight Club
I was sitting at my dining table in the North West Castle Hotel (Stranraer) having my single serving of everything and I remembered Fight Club. The slightly surreal surroundings of this hotel did much to aid this perception. My fellow diners were all peculiar in their own way. There was the low brow couple in the high brow restaurant (it was a five course dinner with a live pianist and very attentive service), the bloke with his tattooed arms and sovereign rings and the frumpy wife. They looked quite uncomfortable and the wife was eating with her knife and fork the wrong way round. Then there was my fellow single business diner who brought his paper to read and seemed very curt with the staff and annoyed when they interrupted his reading by delivering his food. Later a couple arrived and the bloke looked like he had pulled out his suit that he bought in the 70s for his Valentines dinner treat. He also looked like he hadn’t shaved since 1975. The oddest thing that happened was when a fragile old lady walked in carrying 2/3 of a pint of lager on a tray with another couple in tow. She was obviously escorting them from the bar to their table but it looked hilarious to me…surely the geezer could carry his own pint or wait until he’d finished drinking it.
My dining experience was pretty good. I think Gordon Ramsay would have a field day here as it’s hardly contemporary but it was tasty none the less. Oddly I was offered a choice of four starters and then the option of soup before the main course. I had the bacon and chicken terrine, which was basically two large slices of compressed chicken with a bacon lining and some salad. It was too much and could have been a main course, not exactly bursting with flavour but not bland either. My carrot and coriander soup arrived literally 1 min after my first starter was finished. For my main I had baked Codling which was served with piped mash on a bed of spinach, again a bit passe. They then brought a side plate of mash, mashed swede and a bit of cauliflower, not exactly aesthetically pleasing or tasty for that matter. The fish and spinach was good shit though. I then had lemon tart for dessert. The option of cheese and biscuits and coffee was still available but they were to be taken in the lounge. I figured I’d got my money’s worth and besides Arsenal v Palace was on any minute, so I left the easy listening live piano and quirky diners and retreated to the Fight club single serving life of my room.
The hotel itself could be written about for pages and pages. It’s full of relics such as Grand Father clocks, curling trophies (there’s a curling rink), grand looking paintings of historical figures, old fashioned leather furniture and staff that looked like they are approaching their 7th decade in work. My room looks like something out of a stannah stairlift advert. I was surprised that Thora Birch wasn’t sitting in one of my high back chairs when I got back to my room. Stranraer too is an odd place. As I took a stroll around the small town centre I saw a bloke stop a car in the street and have a chat with the driver (no one seemed to mind that he was holding up the traffic). He then shouted hello to the next car and then to another car a few seconds later. Five minutes later as I walked down another street I saw exactly the same thing happen again! Everyone seems to know each other which worries me a bit. Previous to that a random stranger who looked like he had just been released from prison said “howdoo” to me. I was keeping my head down cos he looked tough as nails and I was looking like the rich tourist walking round in my shoes n socks and he gave me a friendly howdoo…weird, these port towns are always a bit odd.
Other random things to mention:
There’s a pub here called “the pub” (see pic)
I had a burger that was made of black pudding and beef mixed together last night
I nearly crashed into an ambulance on my way here
I drove past a road sign that warned about Otters
As I came into Stranraer, waves were crashing over the wall covering all the cars in spray, including mine.
All the road signs say “Haste Ye Back” when you are leaving a small Scottish village
I was sitting at my dining table in the North West Castle Hotel (Stranraer) having my single serving of everything and I remembered Fight Club. The slightly surreal surroundings of this hotel did much to aid this perception. My fellow diners were all peculiar in their own way. There was the low brow couple in the high brow restaurant (it was a five course dinner with a live pianist and very attentive service), the bloke with his tattooed arms and sovereign rings and the frumpy wife. They looked quite uncomfortable and the wife was eating with her knife and fork the wrong way round. Then there was my fellow single business diner who brought his paper to read and seemed very curt with the staff and annoyed when they interrupted his reading by delivering his food. Later a couple arrived and the bloke looked like he had pulled out his suit that he bought in the 70s for his Valentines dinner treat. He also looked like he hadn’t shaved since 1975. The oddest thing that happened was when a fragile old lady walked in carrying 2/3 of a pint of lager on a tray with another couple in tow. She was obviously escorting them from the bar to their table but it looked hilarious to me…surely the geezer could carry his own pint or wait until he’d finished drinking it.
My dining experience was pretty good. I think Gordon Ramsay would have a field day here as it’s hardly contemporary but it was tasty none the less. Oddly I was offered a choice of four starters and then the option of soup before the main course. I had the bacon and chicken terrine, which was basically two large slices of compressed chicken with a bacon lining and some salad. It was too much and could have been a main course, not exactly bursting with flavour but not bland either. My carrot and coriander soup arrived literally 1 min after my first starter was finished. For my main I had baked Codling which was served with piped mash on a bed of spinach, again a bit passe. They then brought a side plate of mash, mashed swede and a bit of cauliflower, not exactly aesthetically pleasing or tasty for that matter. The fish and spinach was good shit though. I then had lemon tart for dessert. The option of cheese and biscuits and coffee was still available but they were to be taken in the lounge. I figured I’d got my money’s worth and besides Arsenal v Palace was on any minute, so I left the easy listening live piano and quirky diners and retreated to the Fight club single serving life of my room.
The hotel itself could be written about for pages and pages. It’s full of relics such as Grand Father clocks, curling trophies (there’s a curling rink), grand looking paintings of historical figures, old fashioned leather furniture and staff that looked like they are approaching their 7th decade in work. My room looks like something out of a stannah stairlift advert. I was surprised that Thora Birch wasn’t sitting in one of my high back chairs when I got back to my room. Stranraer too is an odd place. As I took a stroll around the small town centre I saw a bloke stop a car in the street and have a chat with the driver (no one seemed to mind that he was holding up the traffic). He then shouted hello to the next car and then to another car a few seconds later. Five minutes later as I walked down another street I saw exactly the same thing happen again! Everyone seems to know each other which worries me a bit. Previous to that a random stranger who looked like he had just been released from prison said “howdoo” to me. I was keeping my head down cos he looked tough as nails and I was looking like the rich tourist walking round in my shoes n socks and he gave me a friendly howdoo…weird, these port towns are always a bit odd.
Other random things to mention:
There’s a pub here called “the pub” (see pic)
I had a burger that was made of black pudding and beef mixed together last night
I nearly crashed into an ambulance on my way here
I drove past a road sign that warned about Otters
As I came into Stranraer, waves were crashing over the wall covering all the cars in spray, including mine.
All the road signs say “Haste Ye Back” when you are leaving a small Scottish village
