A LITTLE CHARM

Doctor’s (Teviot Place, 2/23/27/35/41/42/45) was the meeting place for the next leg of The Great Edinburgh Pub Challenge. We were privileged on this occasion as we were joined by fans of ours who had travelled from locations as far flung as Warrington, Huddersfield, Bournemouth and, er, Leith especially to take in a few pubs with us. Ok, so that’s not completely true as they were here to see The Bluetones at the Liquid Room, but that’s hardly the point. Anyway, back to the pub reviews. Doctors is alright, does a lot of good ales’n’stuff like that, the food is decent but it’s by no means brilliant.

Complaints were being made that there was no football on show in Doctors, so we headed round the corner to Oddfellows (Forrest Road, 2/23/27/35/41/42/45), a big cavernous place which used to be meeting place of a Masonic group (hence the name) aimed primarily at students. It was deserted whilst we were in, seemingly nobody was at all interested in watching Spurs beat Arsenal in the Carling Cup semi final. Nobody, that is, except for John who is an Arsenal fan. Bet you wish you’d gone with the folk music option now!

After the gig we went to the Bow Bar on Victoria Street, which is one of the best pubs in Edinburgh. Sadly our resident statistician will not have it included in the pub challenge because it’s not on a bus route – however I’ll tell you a bit about it anyway. Offering over 100 malt whiskys and serving probably about 7 real ales at any one time, the Bow is an intimate little place which retains cigarette mirrors on the walls and maps over the seats. Poor Mike Chadha found it a bit baffling though, ordering a pint of Budvar dark – tops. We accepted that it was a schoolboy error and did the honourable thing – laughed him out of the place. Nick, on the other hand was being asked by the bar staff to pipe down and mind his language. It would be nice if other bars would follow suit, to be honest.

Once everyone had had time to compose themselves and neck a couple of jars, we headed across town to 99 Hanover Street (Hanover Street – no surprises there – 13/23/27) where Mark Morriss was playing a solo gig, along with William Douglas (don’t have a link for you – sorry about that), who had opened in the Liquid Room. Mark ran through a few songs from his Fi Lo Beddow EP and closed with a cover of Teenage Fanclub’s “Alcoholiday”, the rest of us mingled and got a bit pished.

Whistlebinkies (South Bridge, 3/5/7/8/29/31/33/35/37/49/49) was the obvious destination when we left 99 Hanover St at closing time. I’m not a huge fan to be honest with you, having had a couple of fairly unpleasant experiences inside, but objectively it’s a decent place if horrendously overpriced. Usually there is live music on, but on the night of our visit the place was uncharacteristically quiet.

Until the next time…

CUMULATIVE PUB COUNT: 69