“Please give us a good review!” – Brentford | With its mirth and its lonesome end

Brentford

According to the internet, the most interesting things about Brentford are that lots of companies have set up the headquarters nearby, and that Chelsea Football Club donated the floodlights to Griffin Park, Brentford’s stadium. Awesome. We were a bit concerned we’d find the whole trip a little boring. Despite this, we decided there was only one way to commit to blogging a New Years Day away day, and that was go all out and celebrate New Years Eve there as well. Why? Well… no one wants to be travelling first thing with a hangover. And more fundamentally: we’re not big fans of New Years Eve anyway with the crowds, the prices, and the slightly forced hysteria at 00:00… as if nothing’s shit anymore. So if we had a crap night, it would be no big loss.Without going too far and saying we’d move there tomorrow (we wouldn’t), Brentford did come across as ‘pleasant’ and ‘friendly’. Lots of people wishing us happy new year, some free beer, and a free bus ride… which is probably the happiest new year we’ve had in a while.

Lots of nice terraced houses on nice streets, with nice porches and nice bay windows. Somewhere you would be happy to take your mum to. Even our cheap B&B wasn’t too bad. Of course, a quick look on Rightmove shows that these houses would cost you between £750,000 and £900,000, so pretty exclusive to the rich then. Away from these streets though, some of Brentford came across a little tired: a bit of a West London theme?

Brentford is on the River Brent, and predictably, Sir John Betjemen (apparently now an obligatory part of our blog) has had his say on matters, with the following verse:

Gentle Brent, I used to know you
Wandering Wembley-wards at will,
Now what change your waters show you
In the meadowlands you fill!
Recollect the elm-trees misty
And the footpaths climbing twisty
Under cedar-shaded palings,
Low laburnum-leaned-on railings
Out of Northolt on and upward to the heights of Harrow Hill.

Nice one John… nice one?Getting the idea that the River Brent was probably the best thing we were going to see, we took a wander. It was part heartwarming and part depressing (jealousy) to see how many people had taken an alternative to living in the overpriced nice houses and were warming up on New Years Day morning with the fire in their floating homes. The river was a pleasant walk, but then most places have a river don’t they? We had an equally nice walk down the canal in Leeds, without feeling the need to write about it or take pictures.

Art & Culture

Brentford is close to Kew Gardens, the largest botanical collection in the world, and also hosts the London Museum of Water and Steam, which sounded like it was right up our street. With entry at £13.75 or £11.25 respectively, we could justify neither. Just a load of hot air.

Instead, as a quick detour from our riverside walk, we took a short journey up the Great West Road where we found the so called Golden Mile of Art Deco architecture, an oddity unique to Brentford as far as we could tell. If the best thing about Brentford is their company head quarters, they actually nail it pretty well it turns out.

With the wide road containing hardly any traffic on new years day, it felt like we had been transported back to the 1920s or 30s when most of these buildings were built. Unfortunately, many of the buildings appears to no longer be in use and it would be a shame if they stood empty for long. That said, the plants in the window of the old and fenced off Gillette factory suggest that someone at least has found a use for it! IMG_0145-1 Food & Drink

Out first stop for the evening was going to be the Owl & Pussycat, a micropub that brews its own beer nearby to the stadium, but they shut at 8pm before we arrived on New Years Eve. The main road had a number of tempting eateries, including Lebanese, Thai, Turkish and South Indian. We arrived late and hungry, and everywhere looked tempting, especially as they were all over populated due the fact it was New Years Eve.

On whim, we choose Nuki Kitchen. The dumplings were great, apparently so good that we were too busy enjoying them to take a wanky photo. The red curry fine, but the pad thai was pretty poor: they had run out of chicken so we made a rushed and mistaken decision to go with the sea food (never order sea food from a restaurant you don’t know).

The Black Dog Beer House was a decent place to see in the New Year, with nice local beers from Weird Beard brewing and a free firework display from down the road through the window! The atmosphere was relaxed and unpressurised, enabling us to see the new year in with a subtle clink of glasses. The bar staff were decent enough to tell us where to move on to as they shut the bar.The Express Tavern had the feel of a proper locals pub with a good selection of ales on, and stayed open until about half 3. The woman serving us at the bar came across as a little intoxicated herself and gave us free beer (on the sly, as the landlord was in and last orders had gone), on the condition that we give the pub a good review. We couldn’t make out where we were supposed to review the place, so presumably this blog will do? 5/5 or 10/10? We were pissed! As conversation turned to family, the meaning of life, and death, we realised it was probably time to call it a night. Slightly later than we expected it to be! Happy New Year!We didn’t really fancy the ‘continental breakfast’ (the famous continental delicacy of crunchy nut, a tired piece of fruit and sliced bread) offered by the B&B so we headed into town in search of a proper fry up. Sometimes we fancy a well sourced fry up with good quality local sausage etc. But on this occasion, due to beer/sleep levels we fancied a dirty fry up. The kind with a laminated menu made up of 7 or so items: egg, sausage, bacon, tomatoes, beans… chips… and… er… burgers (!?), listed in every possible combination, with change from a tenner.Jenny Cafe & Kebab was just the place. What a genius idea, dirty by night, dirty by morning! So much better than when we went to Newcastle, tried to find a dirty bacon sandwich, and got it served on sourdough bread (have a think about how the properties of this wonderful bread doesn’t serve it’s purpose in this context)

We had a good plan for lunch. The King’s Arms just north of the Stadium hosts pizza by Santa Marai, the best pizza in London according to Time Out magazine, and it is consistently mentioned as amongst the best places to find pizza in the capital. With this being served up in a five times CAMRA pub of the year, nothing could go wrong.

It was shut.

Just down the road was the Castle Inn, the first of several Fuller’s pubs. It seems Fuller’s have managed to build quite a monopoly in West London off the back of an average ale, London Pride. “Probably one of the best 3 for £5 supermarket beers in the word.”

Can’t be too bad though, for a quick bite to eat and a pint? The Session IPA from Fullers is worse than the Pride though, and the food took 50 odd minutes to arrive (although the waiter kept on apologising for it taking “30 minutes”). Apparently, it was because that they had “a lot of orders” in the near vacated pub. And a “cold grill”… we didn’t bite.When we got eventually got the food it was OK, as expected, but not worth the wait for something the looks like it came out of the compost bin. We could have savaged it on something that people read (like Tripadvisor) rather than here, if we were those type of people. Maybe our time would have been better spend in the Steam Museum after all?

Brentford’s most unique feature is the pub on each corner of the stadium, something no other stadium in the football league can boast. Of course we had to do all four: The New Inn, The Royal Oak, The Griffin and The Princess Royal. In fairness to Fullers, the Oliver’s Island was a tasty golden ale in the Griffin, and the Frontier lager wasn’t bad either.

We appreciated the fire in the Princess and the fantastically bright retro Christmas decorations in the Griffin. It was lovely that all the pubs welcomed both home and away fans. All were friendly, with locals sparking up conversation.

The Football

Brentford’s stadium is nestled right in the heart of the community, hidden in amongst these streets (and the 4 pubs!) so it’s barely visible, but for the floodlights rising up. It felt like a proper football ground with the terracing and the massive pillars and heads obstructing the view (we couldn’t really see a fucking thing… and we loved it). It turns out Brentford are moving after next season so it’s good to have ticked this ground off the list. Their next ground is a reasonably modest 17,000 capacity stadium less than a mile away, so hopefully a decent move.

The atmosphere in the away end was decent, slightly tainted by a dickhead in front of us (the kind who makes a series of increasingly unfunny jokes then starts on you if you don’t laugh). It sounded pretty quiet from the rest of the ground, but it’s hard to tell if it was one of those where the fans are singing and we just can’t hear it. The Norwich fans let off a flare when we scored, like we were Italian or something. We hope it looked cool because it induced mild panic in us when we struggled to breathe in such a contained space. Fair play to the stewards, who were very aware of what was going on, without being dicks and spoiling the celebrations.Norwich went behind to a soft goal from a corner, and grew in to the game in the second half to push for a deserved equaliser, helped by a couple fine saves from Tim Krul. In the end, our equaliser was an almost identical soft corner goal. As ever, an away point is a decent return.