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!