retiredmartin

May 2023.

If you visit one place in central Riga, make it Two More Beers.

RateBeer doesn’t think so, putting it in the lower half of their Riga bars, but then like Untappd that site seems more interested in the number of exclusive bottles than quality.

As so often, the Norwegian reviewer gets it spot on.

Two More Beers is two more minutes from Banshee, or 11 minutes in a car.

NO-ONE drives in central Riga; the main mode of travel is scooter.

You can’t beat a courtyard pub.

Sort of enclosed, with groups of tourists popping their heads in from parallel streets to see whether it was the “tourist trap” threatened by the RateBeer local.

Yes, a bit cheesy,

and the staff were certainly the keenest to please we met in the Baltic, where service was efficient and effective rather than effusive, if you get my drift. Certainly young folk back in the UK are a lot more chatty, despite what old grumps may tell you.

Two More Beers have the complimentary walnuts (a first),

the Brunning & Price pretence,

the London Pride badge on the wall of the restaurant.

and a line-up that might have all come from an Estonian Carlsberg as far as I knew or care,

but this Arpus was astonishing.

And the local specialties of dumplings and blood sausage (top) were worth the calories, though an impulse late order of dried fish and squid was a step into Estonian authenticity too far.

She could never bring herself to eat fish heads.

Neither could I.