Brighton Eats

As my life becomes increasingly hectic with the needs of Mommies 1-10, vacations like last week's to Brighton seem like they may become fewer and farther between. However, now that Mommy 9 has hired me on three days a week, and I'm with Mommy 1 the other two days, I am considering paring down the remainder of Mommies, as watching their little ones in the evenings would create a child-minding schedule that would drive the most reasonable of humans to the brink of insanity. And since we can all admit that I already live my life on said brink, let's not tempt the crazy gods, shall we?

So let's tour Brighton together...this is the first of a posting series called 'Brighton Does.' Today, Brighton Eats.

This is Pokeno's Pies. According to my book, it is 'lauded by national food critics,' and while I can't actually verify this report, I can at least say I got one heckuva good chicken and butternut squash pie. (Can we now boast that Pokeno's has been lauded internationally?)

Gravy optional. To which I say POUR IT ON, MOFO'S! And don't be slow about it!

I met a Brighton local at the Sloane Square Market a couple of weeks ago, and I can actually thank him for recommending all of these places. His suggestion for me to try pre-dinner cocktails at Misty's (happy hour 2-for-1) was perfect--their beer garden was cozy and charming, and the bartender Ivan knew his stuff (which is a rarity in the average London pub-tender, so I can't imagine how Brighton typically fares).

Sidebar: what exactly defines a beer garden? Is there a such thing as a cocktail garden? Or just a straight up drink garden? Someone please to shed some light on this.

The Drink Garden.

Then dinner at Coriander! Coriander (below) is a North African-Latin fusion restaurant with an attached deli. The food was great, the restaurant was crowded with locals (as evidenced by their hearty greetings of Chef Dave, who occasionally emerged from the kitchen to make the rounds of tables), and the entire experience felt very warm and intimate.

And the next morning, before catching the train* back to London, I stopped at Sejuice, a tiny smoothie place in the Lanes (Brighton's shopping district).

Sejuice was great: I told Mr. Dread that I was fighting a cold, and he instantly added ginger to my citrus-laden beverage.

Also, is this not the sort of guy you'd want serving up your smoothies? He's got organic written all over him.

*A note on the trains: a train to Brighton from London takes a little less than an hour. This is like the transportation equivalent of taking Bay Area Rapid Transit from 24th Street Mission to, say, Walnut Creek. An easy day trip, basically. But if you tell people here that you are going to Brighton for a day and a half, they recoil: "Isn't that awfully far for just one night?"