11/29/10 a Brit-flavored pub

Dark and fusty, with coats-of-arms in frames on the ceiling above the bar. Fusty because we don't allow smoking indoors anywhere anymore in this state, and I don't think this place has been properly aired out since the law went into effect five years ago. Fusty because it was kind of dark and I didn't even notice the colors of the wall--they could have been made of wood planks, for all I remember. And don't ale and whiskey drinkers love their political posters? On all the walls, calls to dissent and speak one's mind. Lovely and enchanting. And most of all, and I want you to know it is a great effort for me to acknowledge this: Pub food. My friend had some kind of meat pie with handmade crisps, and I had a basket of fries. Both meals came with a glop of rust-colored goo in a portion dish. Waitress called it cajun aioli, but when I tried it, it didn't taste. I ate a few crisps before ordering my own chips. And the food, let me just say, tasted like it was made in a joint where the sweat of one's brow is appreciated, and good friends are as comfortable as old sweaters, and no one cares whether you've washed your face yet that day. But fabulously so, and to find it in the land of renovate everything was awesome.