Wednesday, October 17, 2007

"'cor blimey, guvnor!!!" - a smashing night of booze!!

First up was a nice little Oktoberfest in my kitchen. Spaaten Oktoberfest.
Approx 6% alcohol.
This baby is not quite as smooth as my favourite Spaaten, the Helles, but also not quite the punch of the premium bock.
Somwhere in between and so I give it a 6.5/10.
Nice beer.

Next was a Hitachino Nest Classic Ale &*!!*#$% beer. (I couldn't quite read the Japanese).
Seemed to be some sort of English ale, with Kent golding and Challenger hops.
Cask conditioned, I think this is one of a selection of premium beers brought out by Hitachino Nest, in Japan.
Nice!
forgot about it in my freezer but as it warmed, it got better.
I give it a 7/10.
not bad for Hitachino, whom I don't really rate that much.

Next is a British beer..Samuel Smith's Organic Ale.
Although not exactly orgasmic, it certainly is organic (says so, on the bottle).
Not bad, but tastes bland and nothing special. Almost Eastern European lager/ale taste. Weird.
Low carbonation. 6/10

And then I fell asleep.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

MbarK, Motosumiyoshi (Ozzie bar)

I ventured to a new(ish) bar, M bar K, in Motosumiyoshi, in the Yokohama/Kawasaki area.
A guy I knew before, Australian Mike runs the place with a nice Japanese lady.
I popped by to see the Wales rugby game.

This place is down a small street, a few 100m from the station. Not so easy to find.
Here's a map [Shibuya direction (top) to Yokohama direction (down)]:
The place itself is quite nice.
Here's another pic of the front. This is what you'll see from the street. It has a nice seating area outside. This should be good in the sunnier weather.
An L shaped bar has seating for around 20 or so. Here's a pic of the front, just inside the entrance:
And here's one of the other half:
Thsi is taken from the same position as I took the previous photo. Unfortunately, I didn't take one of the bar.

At least 3 Tvs (normal size, wall mounted - no big screen) shows most of the matches/games/sports events. If you ask and if they have it, I'm sure Mike will put on whichever game you want to watch.

Beer is good. They pour a nice guiness. I recommend trying the Coopers Australian beer. It's not a bad drink. Most people prefer Cooper's Sparkling Ale. I tried it and it was pretty good.
They also serve a few other Australian beers (Fosters, Tooeys, etc) and have a nice selection of Australian wine.
Food - well, I didn't order any so can't talk about that really.
Nice enough selection in the menu.

MbarK 5.5/10
Not a bad little place. Atmospherewise not party central but they do have live music playing and I haven't been to experience that. Points for the Ozzie theme and coopers beers. Nice enough little local.

Overall a nice enough little pub.
I think they play live music in there, too.
Not sure of the schedules.
You can check their website for info, but it's not developed very well yet. Hope they fix that soon.