last weekend rebekah and i found ourselves in brighton for the continuum of #gigvember. getting to brighton was somewhat of a challenge though. with train disruptions from my home station, and engineering works on the brighton line meaning a replacement bus from three bridges, a trip that normally takes and hour and a half total, took me just over three hours. it was... not ideal.
but, when we got into our stifling hot hotel room, complete with a sea view, after a £5 cab ride from the station, the fun times began. we dumped our bags, took some local recommendations from local instagrammers, and hit the colourful streets, cautious we were losing the afternoon light pretty quickly.
first stop was grubbs burgers, for what we were told were the best burgers in the world. a massive call, because i am a burger fiend. well... as much as i love paying less than a fiver for a burger and fries, not to mention the fact there were over ten different and varying types of burgers on offer, sadly, the burger itself was merely something akin to what you buy in the frozen section and pop in the microwave. i guess it was fresher than that, but you get the picture.
there was a lot of hype, and a huge reputation, for a place with nothing but word of mouth advertising (not even a website), so we had to at least try it. can'at say i'd recommend it on. but then again, apparently i have terrible taste in burgers (five guys are easily a top three for me). i did not enjoy, but it was a tick off the old brighton burger bucket list. on the way back to the room we grabbed some wine and snacks (it was about 4pm that we'd eaten, and we were heading out to the gig later) to tide us over, and some breakfast for the morning, and then kick started our night before the show (more on that in the week!).
there was a lot of hype, and a huge reputation, for a place with nothing but word of mouth advertising (not even a website), so we had to at least try it. can'at say i'd recommend it on. but then again, apparently i have terrible taste in burgers (five guys are easily a top three for me). i did not enjoy, but it was a tick off the old brighton burger bucket list. on the way back to the room we grabbed some wine and snacks (it was about 4pm that we'd eaten, and we were heading out to the gig later) to tide us over, and some breakfast for the morning, and then kick started our night before the show (more on that in the week!).
after devouring all the breakfast food, making use of the tepid shower and checking out of the hottest room on earth, we headed to the pier - where else would we go! the clouds off in the distance were pretty grey, but it was a fairly bright day. we changed up some coins and hit the penny machines and the skill testers, hoping to win the big one! sadly, it wasn't meant to be...there were churros at least.
we had a wander of the fair ground, but at that point it had started to rain and the wind coming off the ocean was biting, so... soon enough we gave in to hunger pangs and headed in search of proper food. we had another burger joint to check out before our departure: burger brothers!
we had a wander of the fair ground, but at that point it had started to rain and the wind coming off the ocean was biting, so... soon enough we gave in to hunger pangs and headed in search of proper food. we had another burger joint to check out before our departure: burger brothers!
sadly, burger brothers turned out to be a hole in the wall with twenty-odd people falling out of the doors, all wanting their gourmet burger fix. the crowd of this one was more reassuring of the previous, but were were simply not prepared to wait in the rain outside a pretty... crap looking take away shop. burger bros will have to wait for the next trip, i think.
lukcy for us, directly opposite the take away shop was a cleverly titled restaurant that seemed to just sort of, call out to us: burgers and cocktails! there's this feeling you get in london when you walk into any restaurant on a sunday, and there are no customers already inside. it's a weird one; like, is this place so crap that no-one comes here, or, is this place so incredibly amazing that no-one has come here yet? well, i suppose that's only a london feeling, because there was no-one in there, and it was lunch time. and yet, the staff seemed nonplussed that we were in there.
we ordered our food, and - thankful for the lack of customers, didn't have to wait long. the burgers were good, that's for sure. better than grubbs, definitely, but... still not top three. the sweet potato fried definitely were though, so there's that. with bellies full, and bodies tired, we headed to the train station to check the status of our train. with the engineering works on going, we decided to forfeit the quicker yet more annoying option of the rail replacement bus, and jumped on the slow train back to victoria... two and a half hours later, we were home. ish.
then there was the rest. but, that's just london, innit.
