retiredmartin

31st May 2023. Newcastle.

You left us in the warm embrace of the Quayside Spoons, with your hero upsetting queuers by standing along the bar and Mrs RM corralling the in-laws to a spare table. And I appreciate “corralling” has certain connotations when applied to a MIL.

At 19:02 I’d ordered my tea, a simple Crunchy Chicken Strip Burger that is currently available for £3.13 in many Spoons.

By 19:20 I’d eaten tea, drunk my pint of Old Legover, and was raring to go. No-one else had been able to choose what they wanted to eat, let alone place an order, either on-line or in the queue now snaking back to the Angel of the North. “You’re just impatient” says Mrs RM.

Lacking the usual social niceties, I decided I’d leave them to it and do my next two pubs solo while they dithered.

In fairness, there was no way two octogenarians were attempting that clamber up the Castle Stairs, anyway,

even with the view at the top. It’s YEARS since I did the Bridge Hotel.

Newcastle never disappoints, even on a cloudy Wednesday a week before the Sam Fender gigs.

I’d imagined that the Wobbly Duck, surely a micro, would be stuck in the suburbs, even though the Mean Eyed Cats or Mice or whatever aren’t.

But instead I find it bang central in Eldon Square, though obviously I go searching down a scary alley before locating it, so certain am I that it must be off the beaten track.

But here it is, a cellar bar on a Georgian terrace just off the Toon’s premier shopping street. I’m guessing the Deliveroo drivers aren’t taking pints of Almasty to Whitley Bay.

Quite a classy little place,

with some nice touches, only missing a new copy of Canny Bevvy.

I told you there’d be Almasty.

Those glasses of mine get everywhere.

So does this errant thumb,

but luckily I have a device, probably AI, which can REMOVE thumbs and make life better.

See;

In the Middle Ages, they’d just have chopped your thumb off to keep it out of photos.

Anyhow, nice place, chatty staff, and a good mix of custom inside and out.

The Almasty Scotch was a slight disappointment, a rare NBSS 3 in a sea of 3.5/4, but that may have been a one-off. If I can find it again, I’ll give it a second go.