Brighton

When your in Brighton in the sunshine you realise just what a bipolar place it really is. The main shopping areas are full of pretentious idiots using the days shopping excursion as a cat walk procession. Whilst the little known out of the way places tend to be full of friendly free thinking individuals the likes of which I am pleased to meet. I had a strange experience in a restaurant in Brighton called Havana I spent my honeymoon in Cuba so was expecting the restaurant to have some sort of Cuban cuisine....bizarrely the decor consisted of white stone walls adorned with French photographs, the menu was bog standard Italian pasta, lasagne and gnocci and the staff were quite clearly from hell!! My wife and I walked in around lunch time and asked for a table for two the waitress pointed us to a table and walked off without showing us to it, strange but Ok I can live with that. We sat down and about 10 minutes later were asked if we're ready to order which we did, making sure to mind our p's and q's. The waitress came back and pretty much threw the cutlery on the table, must be having a bad day I thought. I had a cup of tea which consisted of a nice little pot a cup and a tiny jug of milk, the only thing is there was no milk in the jug and the cup and pot were dirty. I sort of expect this from the likes of a roadside cafe, but not a pratentious restaurant in Brighton. The meal came and to be honest it was nothing special, it wasn't bad but it wasn't anything noteworthy (I have had better meals at pizza express). After we finished and the plates were taken away we were not offered a look at the deserts menu or coffee or anything, no worse, a staggering 20 minutes of sitting there the waitress visited other tables and scooted off I tried to catch her attention but she either didn't notice or intentionally ignored me. So 25 minutes later I went to the bar paid the bill and for the first time ever I didn't leave a tip. The morale of this story is never visit the places in the centre that look the part because you'll only dissapointed, instead seek out the "off the beaten track" places where you will find nicer people and a better quality all round. Speaking of which I stumbled upon a wonderful little pub on the street parallel to gloucester road and there is always the basketmakers arms too :)