Baranis

Tuesday 12th March - Baranis is a Provencal/Corsican themed bar tucked away beneath its sister restaurant Cigalon on Chancery Lane (a short walk from Temple tube). Credit goes to flatmate Maggie for recommending this one.  The main reason it makes The List is that Baranis houses an indoor Petanque court (bowls on gravel) that you can use for free throughout the evening.  I booked a half hour Petanque slot and told local Fleet Street paralegal Cheryl (long time reader, first time Lister) to meet me there.

You know you are in the right place when you find the olive trees outside the entrance. Head down the stairs and you are instantly transported to Provence. There is a very chilled vibe and it remained surprisingly empty all evening considering the number of people that must walk past it in need of a quiet drink every day! The theme continues into its menu with plenty of pastis available, herbs and quirky liqueurs going in to cocktails (£7-10), an interesting wine list and appropriate beers (go for the Corsican Pietra beer).

We started off with a Thyme Daiquiri (made using a thyme liqueur) and Le Pagnol (containing lychee liqueur and a rosemary sprig) and headed over to Petanque.  Beginner's luck is the only excuse I can come up with for losing the half hour Petanque session that followed.  I had a healthy lead but it all got away from me in the last few minutes.  A quick check of the rules on Wikipedia has informed me however that the game is only over when one team reaches 13 points. With the scoring set at 12-11, I'm still in it to win it.  There are a couple of tables along the side of the court if you are playing in larger groups, though you would be in danger of a boule to the face, especially after a couple of cocktails.

With my head hung in shame, we headed back to a table to have some food and another cocktail.  The bar menu is mostly snack food but they do make a tasty burger and chips.  This time we went for a classic French 75 and Treasure Chestnut (served in a jam jar). Thanks to the authentic French bar staff for giving us a taster of the Corsican Chestnut liqueur used to make Treasure Chestnut. The service was good all evening and it's impossible not to relax in Baranis.  The only downside was how unpleasant the freezing cold outside world seemed afterwards in contrast!

My birthday week of List-ing continues with Pop up Ping Pong on Saturday and Dime Bar bottomless brunch on Sunday.  Get your tickets for Monkey Shoulder's One Night Only event for next Thursday that looks awesome, and book your table for the ridiculously popular B.Y.O.C while there is still space. 

Feast

Only once place to mention I hear you cry? Not quite... On Friday night (the 8th), Natalie (our current List leader) and I made our way to Shadwell near Wapping to attend Feast food festival in the Tobacco Dock building - an amazing 19th century warehouse complete with two pirate ships docked nearby!

We arrived almost as soon as it opened at 18.00 to get a few tasters in before the crowds arrived.  We had a quick scout around before starting with some freebies from Roti Chai - a delicious chicken chilli bun, dhokla (Gujurati steamed chickpea cake) and various chutneys. Their full street kitchen/restaurant menu looks very interesting - go and find them near Edgware Road.  We moved straight on to a Hix Fishdog - a posh fish finger sandwich with minted mushy peas and yummy tartare sauce for £3.50 (possibly my favourite item of the night) - my second Hix experience of the week after going to Mark's Bar on Wednesday (read about it here).

Next up we went to chat to the boys at The Bowler who serve Great British Balls out of their van, The Lawn Ranger. We went for spicy tomato meatballs with rice and coleslaw (£5 for 2 big meatballs, £3.50 for one - generous portions). Check their site to see where they are parking up next. We moved swiftly on to Forza Win who were serving up Fonduta Fingerz - Slow roasted smoked loin of Ginger Pig ham with oozey fontalle cheese cooked with oregano, and a touch of mustard in a toasted ciabatta. They were deliciously cheesy and therefore pretty filling - perhaps not our best move strategy wise for eating as much as possible! Forza Win normally run seasonal supper clubs that look fun, and they are returning in June later this year.

The Lawn Ranger

Natalie then spotted the word rabbit and went all northern on the folks at the Beagle.  They were serving up buttermilk fried rabbit (her favourite game apparently) with black bean and tomato salsa which we munched our way through pretty quickly.  Natalie went back and discussed rabbit cooking until they gave her some free lamb and homemade pesto as well, showing all the experience that has seen her take the top spot on Team List from Maggie.  The Beagle is opening a cafe/bar/restaurant at the end of March in the arches near Hoxton station with the restaurant focusing on seasonal British food.  Check the website for updates on the upcoming launch.  We obviously forgot about our cheesy strategy mistake from earlier as we moved on to Anna Mae's Mac'n'Cheese next.  They make it up in giant pans in front of you and offer some interesting variations on the original but we had to go for the classic this time around.  The portions are extremely generous at £5 and very moreish.

Despite being now entirely full of cheese we soldiered on and headed for Spit and Roast to try their Buttermilk Chicken Slider with Korean Hot Sauce (£3.50).  Many of the other vendors recommended these guys and they weren't wrong.  The are holding their own Spit & Roast Jamboree on Friday 15th March which promises to be a great night.  They are also appearing at the Brooklyn Feast on Tuesday 12th March (tomorrow!) - 8 of London's top street food vans are parking up next to each other and being paired up with a different Brooklyn beer by Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garret Oliver. A £6 ticket even includes a beer AND a signature dish from one of the trucks.

We were really starting to feel fat by this point so we decided it was time for some pudding. Luckily we discovered a stall from Le Petit Paris in the bar where we had some delicious ice cream - we tried rhubarb (winner), salted caramel and hazelnut praline.  They also do macaroons and milkshakes. It's not entirely clear what they are up to after Feast but they did present a pop-up last September called Sunday Service on a rooftop in Dalston that looked amazing. We washed that down with a bourbon cocktail and had a wander in the hope that our stomachs would create some new space for more food.  It was during this wander that we followed a few subtle arrows on the floor and suddenly found ourselves on our own in a blacked out room under UV lights playing table tennis or "Ping Tron".  We felt very smug for having found this secret room on our own but we didn't stick around for long because Natalie is pretty rubbish at table tennis even when the room is fully lit.

Ping Tron

We still weren't feeling ready for more food so we ventured in to another secretive little area where Rita's Supper Club was quietly putting on a 4 course candlelit meal with rum cocktails on the side.  We couldn't face that much food but we did talk them in to giving us a Kraken of Youth cocktail made with Kraken rum and Michelberger's Fountain of Youth (otherwise known as Coconut Water - follow that link to an amusing website). Rita's Supper Club is run by Rita's Bar & Dining who are currently based in Dalston - check it out!

We finally decided to get back on the food and headed over to Dishoom who were serving up a Lamb Raan bun with some tasty sides and, best of all, a free cup of authentic, warming Chai tea. Dishoom's London Bombay Café can be found in Shoreditch and Covent Garden. We couldn't eat any more after that so we settled in to watch some of the great folk music on offer and even tried to aid the digestion process by joining in with some organised dancing. There were still so many places that I wanted to try out but we left some on purpose that will hopefully be getting a visit soon - Mishkins, Patty and Bun, Elliot's Cafe, The Good Egg, The Last Days of Pisco, Big Apple Hot Dogs, Meringue Girls, Beard to Tail , and Pizza Pilgrims to name a few!

Big thanks to Team List front-runner Natalie for keeping me company throughout all the eating. Coming up this week: MY BIRTHDAY, Rebel Bingo and Pop up Ping Pong! Please leave comments especially if you have any exciting List ideas or you have been to one of those places after reading the blog. Thanks for reading!

Flat Iron - Mark's Bar - Mizuwari

Wednesday 6th March - It's been a busy end to the week, rehearsing the awesome Verklarte Nacht with KSO for a concert last night and attending Feast on Friday (get your tickets for today before they are all gone) so Wednesday seems like a long time ago.  Let's see what I can remember...

I thought it was time to start ticking off some of the Soho places on the List having made a start on Shoreditch and after defeating Battersea last week.  First up was Flat Iron Steakhouse in Soho.  I met up (at about 6.15) with Natalie, Ali and Felix (who put in a solid first performance before he departs for Afghanistan, rivalling Max's pre-Mexico efforts last week) in an effort to beat the queues, but by the time we were all there the wait was already between 60-90 minutes for a table! Luckily though Flat Iron has this covered as downstairs there is an underground cocktail bar selling pre-dinner drinks and St. John's doughnuts  (there's nothing wrong with a bit of pudding before your main course).  The £2.50 doughnuts were delicious - we went for a rhubarb filling (piped in to the dough in front of you).  The craft beers from Redchurch brewery also went down a treat. We didn't sample the cocktails but they use interesting spirits such as Chase Rhubarb Vodka and several made by Few in Illinois - thanks very much to Daniel behind the bar for giving us a taster of the Few Bourbon which was pretty special. Before we knew it, our table upstairs was ready...

The ordering process is pretty simple - how do you want your steak (go for rare) and what sides do you want?  That said there was a special burger on offer but as first timers none of us could face not getting the steak. They generously provide free popcorn (which seems to be everywhere at the moment?) whilst you wait for your food, though this would perhaps be better put to use in the bar downstairs.  The sauces were all tasty and the dripping-cooked chips were good but the main show is the steak and it doesn't disappoint. You get the satisfaction of using a mini meat cleaver to cut it up, which helps to make it last that little bit longer!  The steak itself is £10 and sides are £2-4 each. It was well worth the wait and I will definitely go again (if I get through some more of this uber-long list first).

That is not me.

We headed off in search of a bar and decided to see if we could get in to Mark's Bar tucked away underneath Hix restaurant on Brewer Street. It's not advertised on the street itself so walk through the giant restaurant door and you'll see a neon sign pointing down the stairs.  We had to wait for about 40 minutes to get downstairs which wasn't ideal but it did give us time to peruse the inventive cocktail menu and make up our minds before heading to the bar. There are queues because they don't let it get at all crowded downstairs which is great once you make it in and gives it a member's club feel. It's also not as pretentious as the waiting times and cocktail menu suggest with a truly random mix of music playing in the background and a bar billiards table on offer.

Bar Billiards at Mark's Bar

I went for the Shipwreck Blazer (served hot) which contained beetroot molasses and 10 year old cider brandy aged in barrels reclaimed from a shipwreck on the Dorset coastline.  Natalie's Stiff Upper Lip was also interesting containing green pea-infused gin,  ginseng spirit, cider vinegar, nettle cordial and smacked mint. The cocktails are fairly pricey at £10-£12 but the quality is very high and the menu is extremely varied - worth a visit!

Felix and I decided to squeeze one more place in so we headed down the road onto Old Compton Street to find Mizuwari - a Japanese Whisky Bar that has recently opened underneath Bincho. We were greeted by the knowledgeable Niya who gave us very detailed tasting notes on the Yamazaki single malts, Hakushu single malts and Hibiki blends.  Whisky cocktails are on offer too but we decided to try the Yamazaki and Hakushu straight up - both were nice but the Hakushu edged it.  They also provide bizarre free Bincho-tan water that is filtered through high-grade charcoal called Bincho (which is left in the carafe for you to see).

They don't take reservations and apparently it gets busy very quickly at the weekends but it was pretty much empty when we went in at 10pm. It's a great little place to go for something a bit different especially at the end of an evening, and it is a must for whisky drinkers, but beware you will run up a pretty hefty tab quite quickly. Thanks to Team List - Natalie, Ali (Flat Iron, Marks) and Felix (Flat Iron, Marks and Mizuwari) - Natalie takes the lead with 7 trips to her name.

Pre-List Favourites - Part 2 : Drinks

Here are a few drinking-based pre-list favourites:

The Magic Garden near Battersea Park/Queenstown Road station should be on everyone's list of favourite pubs. Inside it has a student union feel to it but step outside and you discover an incredible garden covered by a circus-style roof complete with indoor furniture including thrones and sofas, tables tucked away in cosy corners and fairy-light lit walkways and trellises  For colder evenings there is a chest full of blankets that anyone can dip into and a secret stash of hot water bottles that the bar staff control.  Drinks are fairly unexciting but the food is very good. There is a stage indoors for live comedy and music (check ahead for events requiring paid entry) so it can get pretty busy, but I've never failed to get in. If you have never been, put it on your to do list.

The Magic Garden - Battersea

Freud Cafe Bar is a classic underground bar on Shaftesbury Avenue.  If I was writing this blog in the 1980s (as a computer literate 3 year old) then I would be raving about it but these days underground bars are everywhere. However, it has survived for so long for a reason. The cocktails are cheap and fun, the atmosphere is buzzing, art exhibitions are held regularly, and it's also worth visiting for lunch. Head down the spiral staircase for a fun evening - it still gets very busy on Friday and Saturday nights!

There are a lot of great pubs in London which I would need a separate blog to do justice to (Draft Houses, Craft Beer, Bricklayers Arms, The Harp, The Cross Keys, Cask, Simon the Tanner, Dean Swift, Bree Louise - just a few off the top of my head!) but one that should make the list is Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street - not to be confused with the Cheshire Cheese down the road on Little Essex Street.  It was rebuilt in 1667 during the reign of King Charles II after the Great Fire and has a maze of underground rooms to get lost in. There is not much natural light making it easy to lose track of time - a great, atmospheric pub.

If you want more wine and less beer (or rather, no beer) but you still want the fun of the vaults then there is only one choice - Gordon's Wine Bar. It is pretty bold not to serve anything other than wine and food but this family run bar situated near Embankment tube station is extremely popular. The building was home to Samuel Pepys in the 1680s before it was a bar. Angus Gordon set up the bar in 1890 and the bar is now run by Luis Gordon. Interestingly though, they are not related - it is just a coincidence!

Underground at Gordon's Wine Bar

Another of my favourite pubs that I think deserves an extended mention is The Euston Tap (with The Cider Tap in the gatehouse opposite for cider fans).  It must be one of the smallest pubs in London (though they have somehow managed to fit a second floor in this tiny Victorian gatehouse) but it would pull in the crowds wherever it was because of the fantastic beer selection.  They save space by having the beer taps up on the wall, with descriptions for each one up on blackboards that change regularly, and bottled beer fridges accessible to the customers either side of the bar. I recommend arriving extra early for any train connection at Euston and spending some quality time inside The Euston Tap!

Two more to go - both recent discoveries. Bar Story is a hidden gem in Peckham Rye that serves up delicious, affordable cocktails with interesting, tasty pizzas on the side.  My friend Jane takes the points for discovering this one after much searching for a bar that met her standards that were set high following a trip to Berlin. It's situated right underneath the train station in one of the arches with rumbling overheard trains adding to the great atmosphere.  Go in summer for a couple of drinks before heading to Franks Cafe & Campari Bar on top of a multi-story carpark (!) round the corner.

Last up is Brunswick House Cafe@Lassco near Vauxhall station. Credit goes to Mary for getting us to tick this one off. A welcome addition to the non-existent Vauxhall bar scene, Brunswick House Cafe has interesting cocktails, rare beers and wine, and nice food (according to reviews) but most noticeably has very bizarre decor.  Lassco, an antique salvage company, has filled the Georgian Brunswick House with all sorts of strange objects and a lot of what you can see is for sale (including a huge dentist's light apparently).  For a similar "buy what you see" experience coupled with a bar, head to The Shop NW10 where you can apparently buy everything that you see.

That's it for now - I'll be writing again soon after trying out a couple of new places and heading to Feast (get your tickets!) at the weekend. Continuing the underground pub/bar theme from Freud, Gordons and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, In The Beginning Was The End is a theatrical experience set in maze-like passages underneath Somerset House. It's meant to be very good and it finishes on 30th March. Thanks for reading all the way to the end!

Dime Bar - Doodle Bar - Street Kitchen

A very busy week of Battersea exploration is coming to an end but March is beginning - hooray! Three more great places to mention:

Friday 1st March: My evening was rapidly disappearing in a pub in Oval when my flatmate Maggie rang me looking for something fun to do. We decided to meet at Clapham Junction and investigate another place on Battersea Rise near Southsider Cocktail Club called The Dime Bar - a retro rock'n'roll bar/diner with private karaoke booths downstairs.  We headed straight for the main bar and pulled up two bar stools in front of Sam the bartender - our new best friend.

We worked our way through some of their fun cocktails, with Sam the barman providing us with free tasters of the more bizarre ingredients - e.g. Bacon infused Bourbon in "Porky's Revenge", Umeshu - plums steeped in alcohol and sugar, Pie Crust Syrup - a sugar syrup reduced from sweet pie crusts!  We also managed to blag a free shot of the Dime Bar Snood Shooter for checking in to their site on Facebook. When we first arrived we weren't sure it was going to be anything special but thanks to great, laid back service and some quirky cocktail ingredients we ended up having an awesome night there.  The cocktails are nearly all £7.50 and there is happy hour every day from 5-7 (until 9 on Thursdays).  Go down on a Wednesday night for "Man vs Chicken" - all you eat wings. Also look out for their Bottomless Brunch on Sundays which comes with unlimited Bloody Marys or Mimosas for just £16!

Free taste of Umeshu and Dime Bar Snood Shooter

Saturday 2nd March: Credit again goes to Maggie for the next two as she decided to have some birthday drinks at The Doodle Bar in Battersea, with pop-up food from the Street Kitchen team round the corner.  The Doodle Bar is special because of a simple, excellent concept which I wish I had thought of first - the walls, pillars and tables are all made of materials that you can doodle on with chalk (mostly blackboard at the moment).  The bar is round the corner from the Royal College of Art (in a strange building called Testbed1 that used be a dairy warehouse) but also pulls in some King's Road crowd so the doodles were varied to say the least. Our most successful doodle (courtesy of Livy) was a pair of angel wings that you could pose in front of.

We arrived early and held on to a table all evening which was useful but there is plenty of space in the bar and the atmosphere was relaxed even when it was busy at the end of the evening.  There are nice cocktails and beers on offer though they aren't trying to stand out in that department. The List "Fact of the Day" came from keen team list member Natalie who impressed Vangeli the barman by informing him that their mysterious skull shaped bottle was in fact Crystal Skull Vodka made by Dan Ackroyd from Ghostbusters, earning us three free shots in the process!

Dan Ackroyd's Crystal Skull Vodka

The bar itself doesn't serve food so you are allowed to bring in whatever you want to eat, but you should travel no further than the pop-up food van next door called The Hatch run by Street Kitchen (who can also be found near Liverpool Street and hopefully soon in a permanent residence in Shoreditch). Award-winning chefs Jun Tanaka and Mark Jankel are to thank for the tasty food on offer. On weekdays they serve gourmet food in takeaway lunch boxes from 12-2. They only currently serve food in the evenings on Fridays and Saturdays from 7.30-12 when they provide fantastic gourmet burgers and delicious skin on chips.

The burger banter from the guys cooking that evening was excellent and they were happy to let you experiment with various toppings but I highly recommend sticking to their incredible creations.  As soon as I had finished I was already craving another one (despite generous portions) so I will have to return soon. Next stop: Feast Food Festival next Friday! Also watch out for pop up Ping Pong, Hot Tub Cinema, After Hours Dessert and Lucky Chip at the Grafton this month.

Many people made it onto Team List this week - Maggie takes the lead with 5 List visits now to her name. Have any readers done more? Ali, Natalie, JB, Luke, Anna, John, Jenny, Lauz, Mary, Max K, Andy Murray (celeb bonus), Molly, Livy, Helen, Lauren, Andy, David Gray (double celeb bonus), Sara, Livia and possibly more? Let me know if you feel you deserve a Team List mention. Here are some more pictures of Street Kitchen food and Doodles. Thanks for reading!

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Ben's Canteen - Powder Keg Diplomacy - Southsider Cocktail Club

Today's edition comes all the way from Battersea (mostly because I live there).  As expected this is already proving to be expensive and fattening (see liquified butter below) but Clapham Junction didn't let me down this week.  Three new places to report:

Tuesday night (26th Feb) - I wasn't sure where I was going to go but I had my heart set on somewhere. The candidates were Cafe Cairo (Clapham North), Pitt Cue Co (Soho), Ping (Earls Court) and Powder Keg Diplomacy (Clapham Junction). The texts went out to keen beans and votes came in for Powder Keg Diplomacy (or PKD). One keen "Lister" came all the way from Mile End only to discover that London's busiest station is sadly not on the Northern Line.

Powder Keg Diplomacy

After a quick transfer via Balham, Taro found Clapham Junction and we wandered up St. John's Hill towards PKD.  I knew a place nearby called Ben's Canteen that a friend had mentioned and so we popped in there first.  As luck would have it, Tuesday at Ben's Canteen is 2 for 1 Cocktails so we ordered a Spiced Vanilla Mojito each - to our surprise it was served in a jam jar. The drinks were good but I wouldn't buy one again unless it was half price.  We didn't stay long but the food is meant to be good - they claim to have one of the UK's best burgers but I can't confirm or deny this sadly. They run craft workshops amongst other things and it is definitely worth a look if you live in the area as there is a lot going on.

Ben's Canteen cocktails

Then we moved on to Powder Keg Diplomacy - a bar/restaurant with crazy cocktails, good beer and fine dining.  Apart from the cocktails helping it to stand out, the bar is Colonial themed and only uses ingredients that can be sourced from the corners of the old British Empire. My favourite section on the website is the separate wine list dedicated solely to wines from countries that we have been at war with.  On arrival we were presented with three ale samples to taste by a barman in a waistcoat.  They were all very nice but we made the correct decision to move on to their bizarre cocktail list.  Taro started with Queen Anne's Revenge - House Aged Wray and Nephew Rum, Pickled Walnut Vinegar, Green Tea and Treacle; Smoked and served with English Blue Cheese and Pickled Walnut.  It's a ridiculous cocktail served in a test tube type arrangement with a cork provided which you can take on or off depending on how smoked you want your rum. I meanwhile ordered Henry Martini Rifle - Whitley Neil Gin, Gunpowder Green Tea Vermouth, Maple Syrup, Dandelion and Burdock Bitters. Similarly ridiculous, mine was left for me to pour in my own time with most of the cocktail reserved in a spherical container on ice.

Queen Anne's Revenge

Taro and I were joined by two more from Team List - Rosie was excited to discover a cocktail called Regali-tea containing Earl Grey-infused Plymouth Gin (her two favourite ingredients combined at last) and Max went for a Chipotle Sour which had an enormous sphere of ice filling the glass along with a tiny Chipotle chilli. Extra points for Max for turning up having moved back to England that day from Brussels with a trip to Mexico looming a few days later. The drinks are good value at around £8 and the food is meant to be great. There is also a magician on certain evenings who walks from table to table performing close-up magic!

Henry Martini Rifle

Wednesday evening (27th Feb) - Max (of PKD fame) was having a curry in Battersea to celebrate his return from Brussels and also his departure to Mexico, so I shamelessly tried to turn it into another List evening. Luckily, Max was very keen and he will be sorely missed as a reliable member of Team List whilst he is away after a storming two day performance. We decided to try and squeeze in a few cocktails at Southsider Cocktail Club before dinner after reading great things about the Blumenthal-esque mixology going on there. Seven of us gathered in Southsider CC and we were delighted to find that they have £5 cocktails everyday from 5-8.  The cocktails are already cheap at around £7.50 considering how odd they are, so £5 is a bargain. The main reason I wanted to go was because they make their own version of Harry Potter's "Butter Beer" - here is their take on it: 42 Below Manuka Honey, Popcorn Bacardi Superior Rum, Butterscotch Schnapps, Liquified Butter (!), Soft Toffee Caramel, Vanilla Salt, Asahi Beer.

Sam and his Bloody Warhol

It was sickly sweet but definitely close to what I imagined the original to be like.  More strange cocktails were ordered including a "Bloody Warhol" served in a soup tin, "Dirty Man Harry" served in a gun shaped-flask, ice bucket and chilled coupette, "Grandma Sloane's Teatime Tipple" served in a fine bone china mug with a macaroon and the "Full English Flip" - Bacon Woodford Reserve Bourbon, A whole egg, Maple Syrup, Angostura Bitters, Dehydrated Bacon Crumb. Other odd ingredients worth mentioning include edible flowers, toasted coriander seeds, chorizo mezcal and atomised tobacco mist! The staff were also incredibly friendly and helpful and brought us unlimited free popcorn with three different flavours sprinkled on top. I can't recommend this place highly enough, especially with the overly generous daily happy hour from 5-8.

Southsider Cocktail Club

Whilst I'm here I thought I would mention a couple of events going on in London that are one-offs or have limited availability. I will try and tweet about them as they come up so follow @matthew1hickman for more regular updates. Feast is a food festival on next Saturday (7th-10th March) at the Tobacco Dock, Wapping - tickets are £8/£9 and a lot of the food on offer is from places on The List that I haven't been to yet. Cambalache - One Night in Argentina is a night of Argentinian experiences with unlimited food, wine and cocktails plus much more for £35 on 18th April. Dine Mile High is a pop-up air-travel-based restaurant/bar experience that looks fun. Backyard Cinema does what it says on the tin - tickets sell out fast each time so subscribe for updates for them. Wilfred Bagshaw's Time Emporium is "an immersive theatrical adventure which culminates in an after-party in a sprawling Victorian warehouse" - no idea what that is about. Last but not least - Hint Hunt is a an experience for 3-5 people where you have to solve a mystery together to escape a room within one hour. Leave a comment if you try any of these experiences or any of the places I have mentioned - it would be great to hear for you! Next stop for The List : The Doodle Bar.

Team List: Taro (Ben's Canteen, Powder Keg Diplomacy); Rosie and Max (PKD and Southsider); Mary, JB, Sam and Natalie (Southsider) - Taro leads with way with 4 trips