October 2024. Ely.
We’re snatching excitement where we can, evening trips to deepest Norfolk after hospital and care home visits.
The trains to Wymondham (not pronounced anything like that) cunningly requires a 45 minute layover, as the Americans call it, at Ely which is 5 minutes too short to get to the Prince Albert and back.
Luckily, we have an Untappd venue ON THE ACTUAL PLATFORM.
Yes, the Ely Food Station, like that bod at Stoke split into two parts to stop you getting on the platform without a ticket, has all your favourites. Or they will be your favourites once cask is dead.
I wasn’t much attracted to those, or the craft in the fridge,
but Mrs RM reminded me that the charity dog was always the sign of a Proper Pub,
and I succumbed to the Pie & Pint offer.
“Which pie would you like ?“
“Steak and kidney please“
“Don’t have that“.
“Er, just steak“
“Sorry, that’s gone“.
“What DO you have ?”
“Just chicken and mushroom“.
Music from Black Box and Starship, banter from a schoolchild attempting to play the piano (probably Eurythmics) and telling his parents his “plant based fish” at school was disgusting. It’s supposed to taste like that.
It was lukewarm and tasteless, but I’m not actually dead yet, and the Goose Island was cold if not “as good as Beavertown”.
Fantastically characterless, but I expect it to feature in a CAMRA guide to artisanal food and beer matching before the decade is out.
retiredmartin 
Kind of like a certain cheese shop we all remember…
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Yes, Wymondham’s pronounced without the “mo”, just as Hunstanton’s pronounced without the “ant”. A few more bits of Norfolk town names can make an interesting sentence known only to local folk, so I’m told.
And “5 minutes too short to get to the Prince Albert and back” reminds me that the latest “Norfolk NIPS” magazine has the “An Enchanting Experience in Ely” article with the 137 words about the Prince Albert including neither “Greene” nor “King” !
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Chicken & mushroom is always the Pie of Disappointment. In many ways Goose Island IPA is a great match for it. Well, it would be if food and beer matching was a thing, which it isn’t.
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