Bristol, England - Do any ILXers reside in this fair city?

ah nice. it's a really great place. just what we were looking for. bit more expensive than we'd hoped for but having done my sums, not commuting into London each day means I save money anyway.

you're near all the nice cafes and stuff around Picton Street, not to mention Bell's Diner
Boston Tea Party is NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE and it makes me cross

Letting agents are shits round here. We let our flat with one a while ago and they cocked everything up. Just one example, it took about 5 requests to get them to spell my surname correctly.

"s u r p r i s e" right?

we're going with 0cean. they don't seem so bad, but i trust lettings agents about as far as i can throw'em. can't believe how many fees and upfront costs there are in renting these days. shame we even have to use an agency - i found out about the house through a friend whose mum owns the house, but hey ho.

xp very good.

oh hello. I live here now! :-) :-) :-)

what ?!? I thought you had Hitchin written through you like a stick of rock...

a lot of people were surprised.

good luck dog latin!

This may be of interest.

http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-releases/the-8-best-record-shops-in-bristol/3/

Anyone up for coming to see either Jlin or Colin Stetson in Bristol in the next couple of weeks?

I have never heard of those people and am largely tied down by abject poverty and frogbox crazy separation-anxious dog, but /wave and a belated welcome to brizzle dl

hi Zora!

Massive Attack due to play a big homecoming show in September. Anyone interested?

10 months in, how is the Bristol adventure going?

Yes I would be interested in Massive Attack, but I doubt it's realistic (for me).

I'm loving it mate, gurt lush etc etc... Already made a lot of friends, doing DJ slots and generally getting involved in a lot of stuff. Met up with kinder from ILX once or twice. Still need to meet with MarkE at some point (not forgotten this). Job's a lot better than the one I left in London. Overall it's one of the most positive changes I've made in my life. Frustratingly we have to move house again cos our landlady's selling-up, but that's not til September so hopefully we'll find somewhere just as good. Need to buy soon, but that feels a bit of a way off.

Oh, I'm seeing Kamasi Washington at the Anson Rooms soon too if any Ilxors are about for that.

Last weekend I went to Bristol for the first time since I was kid - me and my partner enjoyed it so much that we've already discussed potetially moving there! We ended up raving to old skool hardcore and jungle in Stokes Croft a crowd approx 15 years younger than us till 5 AM.

Haha, that was the 'Rave On Avon'. We tried checking it out but by 5pm there were amyl-ed up students spilling in and out of every venue so we hung around a bit and then went for a pint. Stokes Croft is anarchic at the best of times, but it was just a little bit too much for me on that occasion. chap, if you revisit let me know.

Will do! Think it would've been a bit much for my old bones too, but we were sort of in holiday mode.

Stokes Croft is just a stone's throw from nice leafy cobbled areas, don't worry :)

I'm looking for beer/brewery/pub recommendations if you have any...?

Follow @marktaylorfood on Twitter - food critic for Bristol's paper who has loads of recommendations on his timeline.

Cheers suzy!

I haven't been paying close attention to craft beer recently because (a) I'm drinking less beer and (b) I get a bit bored by the aggressive happiness of too much of the stuff (I have half a feeling this is becoming an out-of-date view but hey, I'm drinking less beer just now. Also I used to go to Bristol a lot but now I go only very rarely, sadly, os my view's not worth so much.

ANYWAY I really like beer by Moor (who've recently moved to Bristol), I like their Raw in particular; Bristol Beer Factory are VG, I think of them as being particularly strong on stouts; Arbor Ales also always worth at least a taste. People seem to like Wiper and True but I don't recall ever drinking their beer. The Wild Beer Company's from not too far away (somewhere in North Somerset I think) and it's worth looking out for their stuff if you like your combinations experimental.

I don't know about whether there are good craft beer bars in Bristol - I'm sure there are but I think Bristol's blessed with a very high number of surviving nice old-fashioned pubs; this looks pretty useful to me: http://www.camrabristol.org.uk/Files/TavernTrail.pdf though I don't know lots of them so I can't vouch for its quality. If you're interested in old-fashioned boozers then you should definitely have a look in the Kings Head between town and Temple Meads, it's an amazing survival and their "tramcar" snug is (as far as I'm aware) unique.

(The craft beer angle of that post is because I saw you'd posted a similar question on the beer thread fwiw)

the Bag of Nails is a v good old skool Bristol pub imo. if you google it you'll find a bunch of stories from eg Buzzfeed about its USP, which is the several cats who are also there at any one time, but it has a lot to recommend it outside of that

Best craft beer place is Small Bar on King Street, at the Queen Square end. I also used to like Beerd on Cotham Brow.

What sort of place are you after (and any particular area)? Bristol is spoilt for great pubs of all kinds. King St in general is quite fun with lots of ancient pubs then you come out to a few bars on boats. Beerd (not on King st) does pizza and lets you buy 1/3 pints to try.

Beerd is near Highbury Vaults and White Bear (3 and 4 on that tavern trail) btw

Highbury Vaults was probably my favourite old school pub in Bristol. Cotham Porter Stores is nearby and probably the last real old school cider house in town (used to have just a section of wall and a drain outside as the gents, for example).

Love all the Kingsdown pubs and then you've got Crofters Rights etc on Stokes Croft. That's been fairly recently re-done and looks like they've half finished but think that's the intended effect. Has tons of local and guest craft beers/ciders
http://croftersrights.co.uk/tap-list/

Aldo OTM about the Highbury Vaults and Cotham Porter Stalls (though the last time I went to the latter it had been given a lick of paint and wasn't quite the dark brown cider cave I remember from visiting in the 80s. Still excellent though.

Wow, thanks for all the tips everyone. I will report back in a few. Cheers!

hah, I've been to hardly any of these places.

Staying nearby Temple Meads for the odd night or two for the next few weeks. Any nice restaurants to check out?

Also a good vegetarian place if possible

Follow my friend Mark on Twitter or scroll through his tweets.

tx!

Temple Quay often has good street food events but they're during the day I think.
Been recommended Yurt Lush right near Temple meads but not been. I try and ignore the shit name.
Temple Meads seems like it's far out of the way but it's not too much of a trek to Queen's Square, Riverstation (which is v nice) - 12 mins walk from the station according to google - and all around Welshback/ King Street. So loads of places if you don't mind a 15-min walk!

Then there's Casa Mia which is a bit more 'occasion' and the Ostrich pub which is worth stopping by for a drink.

Veggie friends like Souk Kitchen which is in Clifton and Southville and Thali Cafe is always a good bet (also in Southville, Clifton, Montpelier, and other places). Dog latin could probably help on that front, too.

sorry just re-read your post, thought you were looking for convenience but if you don't mind going a bit further there's tons more I could suggest, but probably best to have a look on Bristol247.com or similar.

Thanks - good for a 20 min walk around temple meads btw so I'll try some and let you all know. Feeling violated by what I had tonight. xp = not a problem, quite like more suggestions and can always make the time, especially in summer.

where did you go tonight?!

hotel food.

I'd say St Nick's Market and the area around Corn Street is a good shout for street food and restaurants. Feels like I see a new place every day - especially Asian cuisine.

for value, near the arches on Gloucester Road I have tried Asian Spicy (which despite the generic name is an excellent Indian restaurant) and Affendi, a Lebanese restaurant which we checked out randomly the other day and loved. Both are BYOB which makes for a nice cheap meal.
More expensive is Glassboat on the Welsh Back. As the name suggests, it's on the river and the food is very tasty, Anglo-French. Good if you like steaks and seafood and just the right kind of service.

Cheers.

found this anarchist bookshop today. #adventures

just booked tickets for Simple Things Festival. Prices go up at midnight tonight but they stand at £35 incl booking fee, which looks reasonable to me.

I'm considering going to that, it has a good line up and the Tekklife showcase should be great

The Teklife showcase is one of the main reasons I want to go.

i return to work next week DL if you ever decide to do the lunch hour meet-n-greet thing.
i work tues/wed/thurs.
i work between st nicks and the galleries.
well, that is as long as the crew i work for have not been relocated in my absence - this is not beyond the realms of possibility !
ps. glad to hear things are going well, and hopefully your have managed to sort a new place to dwell out.