retiredmartin

April 2024. Veliko Tarnovo.

Heading back round the west side of the Tsaravets fortress the heavens opened,

and Mrs RM demanded a pub, while at the same time making unnecessary stops to take soggy photos for her own blog.

Untappd has two categories of entry, yellow dots for “verified venues”, the sort of place that tell you which weird named pumpkin sours are on their electronic scoreboard right now, and red dots where Dave might have had a pint of Madri last October.

“Малкия Интер” means “Small Inter”, a reference no doubt to the Italians that City beat in last year’s Champions League final, so I picked that.

Finally, a pub that doesn’t look like a shop conversion,

not exactly multi-roomed but a quirky sprawling place with musical and nautical tat on different levels.

Looks a bit like the Sally Port in Old Portsmouth, I reckoned.

Is that Uncle Bulgaria next to the brewing vessel ?

Possibly not; Uncle Bulgaria in Bulgaria is pushing my luck.

But it did have a house lager that Untappd regulars raved about with talk of “strawberry notes” and “malty stickiness” while Mrs RM reckoned “nice“.

I thought it so good, or perhaps the rain looked so scary by now, we joined the other table in a very early tea (it was packed when we left at 6) from a tempting menu.

Tempting but indecipherable, but that’s an egg I reckon.

Mrs RM’s wondrous plate of stodge arrived within 5 minutes, mine hadn’t turned up after 20 so I did what you’re never supposed to do and went to check on progress.

“Your sausage is a delicacy and is just being prepared” I was reassured.

And here is that sausage. Just sausage. And mustard. But it was perfect.

“Unless you’re the pub cat, which refused my generous offer of a bite. Her loss.“

“Why are you talking to the cat” said Mrs RM. “She doesn’t speak English“.