My friend and I went to Penarth to visit our chum who's emigrating to New Zealand. Everyone I know seems to be emigrating which isn't fair, but is about as fair as my maths is good (everyone I know translates as FIVE.)
Anyway, after an afternoon of eating cake and snoozing on the sofa in front of a roaring fire and surrounded with cats, the idea of getting wrecked in Cardiff and Chippie Alley palled. So we went on a pub crawl in Penarth instead.
The pub crawl drew to an abrupt halt when we got to the Lion, a favourite of my friend's during her teens, and it transpired that it was doing Fosters for £1.50 all through January. I bloody hate beer, but was turned into a purring kitten by the fact that the jukebox didn't play anything post-1995 all evening. I don't know anything about Davos, but hurrah! I STILL know all the words to Cast songs! This has the potential to be a great ID scheme: if you don't come in singing all the words to 'Two Princes' and going "CHOON!", you're out on your ear.
There's a beer garden out the back which came in handy when one of our number got over-hot and felt like she was about to pass out. I hate beer, but I do like stars, and the lovely thing about being in Penarth rather than London means that you get a cracking view. Less cracking was the lack of loo roll in the ladies. After some annoying experiences elsewhere (Pix in Covent Garden, for shame), I've taken to carrying a packet of tissues around in my bag like somebody's grandmother, but just so you're warned.
We didn't drink much until the emigrée decided she'd like some Sambuca: the Lion does eight flavours of Sambuca, if you please, including Chili, Apple, Raspberry, and Banana. Sounds rancid. They'd run out of original, so we had liquorice, which tasted practically the same. I'm going to draw this review to a halt now and reflect on the fact I'm 28 and still drinking flavoured sambuca. Oh dear. read more