Well, I’m kind of hooked on the reviewing thing now so this aspect of the blog will carry on into 2017. However, it would be daft to deny myself the opportunity of going to restaurants I enjoyed in 2016 so I shall revisit them as I will and only mention them if they have improved/declined noticeably in the intervening time.

I will try and keep the same spirit of novelty though and try to visit as many unfamiliar places as possible, starting with Annie’s Burger Shack in Nottingham. We were in town for the Miners’ Strike derby – that’s Notts Forest v Barnsley.* The match was a corker with a last gasp winner for the Tykes and plenty of baiting of the Nottingham folk for their dubious political allegiance during the 1980s. Being an Essex born Ipswich fan I didn’t have much skin in the game but was happy to enjoy the spectacle (ever the flâneur).

We laid in some stodge at Annie’s, a cavernous room in the centre of town that was selected by one of the beer aficionados amongst our group. He chose well. They’ve got a range of real ales on tap as well as a fistful of good lagers. The food majors on burgers (no shit Sherlock) but one of us went off piste with a hotdog. I took the Lemmy, which was a good hunk of meat with a mountainous (and I mean mountainous, I’m not exaggerating) helping of jalapeños. It was delicious. Skinny fries on the side were good too.

Service was brisk and friendly and the fact that a large room (with even more space in the basement, where they have big screens and music) was pretty much full for lunch shows that it’s popular with the locals. I’m guessing 12 quid odd for a burger around here is at the high end of the market around these parts but for someone from London it was fine.

There was some grumbling about the packets of ketchups etc but as the waitress pointed out we could have added on a fresh sauce for 75p. I had no complaints, this was the perfect way to kick off 2017 in the company of friends new and old.

8/10

#Food #Nottingham

*County also have the same grudgery from BFC.

To see which other restaurants I’ve visited in 2017 check out my GoogleMap

Food Restaurants Annie's Barnsley FC burger Food Nottingham Restaurant Review