Curries...

So last week I ended up in Malvern for a night. This is both a good and a bad thing. On the plus side, it's a stunning little town, with the hills right behind you. It's really nice and the kind of place you forget exists in the world of London village. The hotel is a vast old building which, I think, used to be where the clergy lived for the next door abbey. The views from the back of the hotel are gorgeous, looking straight down the vale as far as the eye can see. However, my view was of the car park entrance at the front. This is the bad bit. The room was clean and nicely decorated (certainly a lot better than the Fownes!) however they have these phones that I don't like. They have a display on them that glows , it's backlight with a bright green. This keeps me awake at night. Over breakfast the following morning, a collegue owned up to covering his every time he stayed with a pair of pants. Mental note: Never use the phones in that hotel!!!!!

The other downside to this hotel is the drive to work. I left at 7:30 and it took 40 minutes to get to the office. A real pain in the ass. Oh, and one more thing. To the barman - it's never too much hassle to change a barrel, and you can trust people to wait while you do it....I had meant to mention in my last post, we started that night in the Swan with two nicks - a real pub, old beams, lot's of beer and whisky. The round cost £3.90, with mine mates pint costing £1.30. A pint. Madness.

On to dinner. Having waited for another collegue for ages (we caught him out later when he said his tv wasn't working properly that he had been watching tele!) we headed to the Bengal Brassarie. This place was chosen on the basis, as my collegue said, he wanted a dirty curry. The other curry house we like in Malvern is quite posh and modern inside, this one isn't. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice place, just not up to the Anupam. Some poppadoms and dips were the starter (as always!), although they impressed me with the lime pickle which we don't see all the time. I then had the Chadli chicken. It was nice, not too hot, tomato based sauce with yoghurt I think. It was a few days ago now and my brain can't recall it! All in all, everybody had a good meal, very tasty and we will be back there soon....

At the weekend, we ventured out with some friends to a local Mexican place called tu chicas. While the decor leaves a lot to be desired, the food was superb. Everything Chimichangas wasn't. We shared the starters - some bbq nachos (superb!), jalepenos with cheese filling deep fried (so much better than the earlier effort this week - they were fresh and with a nice chilli bite to them). Some breaded mushrooms and a rack of ribs completed the starters (there were four of us I should add!). The ribs came in a bbq sauce, different to the nachos. There were so many ribs! meat was cooked perfectly, they just fell of the bone. For mains, I'd always steered clear of the chilli as it comes with a warning that it's hot, but feeling brave and egged on by my mate, we both went for it. It was superb. They apparently add some tequila to it, and would never know. It was really dark and looked like a chilli should. It came with guacamole, cheese, salsa and sour cream, and loads of tortilla chips. Nobody was able to finish as there was so much food, everybody loved it. We drank margaritas all night which was a bit of a mistake as the cold gave my friend a headache and mine took me an hour to drink! They came in little glasses with a sleeping mexican with a sombrero on the stem. Told the decor was class.... :-)