The old Fringe Bar on the corner of Vivi­an and Cuba has morph­ed into Bru on Cuba.

Brew DogCall­ing it a craft beer bar would be a bit of an over­state­ment (albeit pleas­ant enough with dark wood decor and leath­er couches), it places com­fort­ably in the chill out/sports bar space, with Bound­ary Road and Scot­tish Brew Dog their main beers on tap (are we there yet with all the ‘dog’ craft beers?).

The Brew Dog Dogma heath­er infused scotch ale was actu­ally rather pleas­ant, a little creamy and without any bit­ter after­taste often found in the dark beers and stouts (for this kid any­way) with Sir Google telling me it was a blend of malts and hops, includ­ing chocol­ate brown and dark chocol­ate vari­et­ies.  Sir Google ran aground at the Bound­ary Road site though with a some­what unfathom­able entry for over 18s (check it out here if you fancy a chal­lenge!).

Sat­urday saw an enti­cing sign out­side Jimmy’s (the café in the St James Theatre) – WOW whisky scones with Chan­tilly cream.  I con­fess to being a WOW sup­port­er and scone enjoy­er, and have recently dis­covered Scot­tish whiskys (thanks Arthurs!), so who could turn down that com­bin­a­tion.  I always enjoy sit­ting in the tran­quil­ity of the theatre foy­er and ima­gin­ing all the events and out­fits and people who have passed through, and neither dis­ap­poin­ted on this occa­sion.  A deli­cious whisky back­note to the scone, enhanced rather nicley by the dol­lop of Chan­tilly cream, and a quiet chuckle over Peta’s week­end column. Nice.

L'Affaire chocAnd back to chocol­ate.  I finally got to the earth­quake-inter­rup­ted WOAP Oh La La, French Chocol­at event tonight (boy am I get­ting good value from WOAP this year!).

Jo at L’Affaire au Chocol­at gave us a per­son­al chocol­ate edu­ca­tion, with so many tast­ings and gifts to take away that even this white chocol­ate lov­er (hea­then, yes I know) went away with an improved appre­ci­ation of dark chocol­ate.

Her truffles are just truly beau­ti­ful, and she also spe­cial­izes in the import­a­tion of top qual­ity bars of French and Mad­a­gas­can chocol­ate (to name a few).  Now that I have been to her Ber­ham­pore shop, I shall def­in­itely be back for more.  Thanks Jo!