A Stroke of Pub Genius

I'm the kind of person who occasionally likes to go down to a pub and have a drink or two with a few buddies when I get the chance, I think that's great.  That said, I'm not the kind of person who is into things like football (English football) or anything like that, I'm not all that much of a sportsman really.

So sometimes when I go down to the pub, nothing spoils it for me more than football being played so loud on a big projector with people yelling so loud that it's impossible to have a conversation.  That said though I'm not the kind of twat who complains, I get that people like to do that but it just spoils the whole pub thing for me.

So in London, some absolute genius had the idea of setting up a gaming bar.  It's basically like a pub but with computers in it and they show stuff like Starcraft 2 instead of football.  This is great because if people are yelling over Starcraft and I can't have a conversation, at least I have something that I'm interested in to look at.

The other nice thing about this bar is that its very existence sort of dispels the myth of all people who enjoy games being anti social uber nerds which while not as widespread a view as it used to be, still exists, and that's sad.

It's not the only one too, off the top of my head I think there is one in Manchester (UK) called the Kyoto Lounge, but on account of not being in Manchester for a long long time, I've not been to it so I don't know if it's quite the same thing as the Meltdown bar, but I've heard about them showing Starcraft tournaments, so that's cool.

So if you live in London or Manchester, or if you have something similar in your area, had down and wet your whistle and support this shit.  It's a great idea and it would be a damn shame if these efforts went under.

Japanese Prison Bar

Well it took a long time, but finally I'm in a position where my brain works well enough to actually write something.  Since this state was caused by a large amount of drinking, before I go back to video games, I'll give a run down of one of the most interesting bars I've ever been to.

The bar is called Kangoku and is situated about 15 minutes from my apartment.  From the outside, the place is ominous as fuck because all the windows are blacked out and aside from the neon sign, the whole thing is pretty featureless. 

So the first thing you are treated to as you walk through the door is a skull right in your face

At this point you already kind of know what you're in for, so you navigate a dark corridor filled with other scary things and then you come to a recreation of a prison cell block where you are greeted by a waiter. 

With this being a prison themed bar, all the tables are inside cells that you are put into by the waiter.  Some of the cells are closed and your orders are delivered through a hole in the door, our cell was not closed and the waiter would just take and bring orders normally, probably due to the size of our group.

The food here was really good, and all for a good price too!  We got a course that involved a load of shashimi, soup, potato wedges and some of the must succulent chicken ever as well as some sushi to top it all off.  As well as that, for about 1000 yen, we got an all you can drink deal, so for about 90 minutes we had a never ending supply of booze.

Prison food has never been so good

I'm not sure what time it was exactly,  but at what I think was around 8pm, everything goes dark and a sort of show type thing starts.  This involves some spooky story being told over a loudspeaker, but the loudspeaker was a load of crap so it was basically incomprehensible.  Once the announcer is done, the whole place goes pitch black, and a couple of guys in a scary glow in the dark mask starts terrorising the customers.  It's actually really cool to see, and the way the guy in the mask moves is really impressive.

Once the show is done, they do special stuff for anyone in the establishment with a birthday, and then you're free to move on.  It's a great place with good food, good prices and good service, with an entertaining theme and an impressive little show, so check that shit out if you find yourself in Nagoya

Extra pics!