OUR Backyard

prowsey found it first .. but we have both made it our own very very quickly.

thats right, the hillcrest chicks have a new local and its FABULOUS.

we stopped in on monday night so that i could check it out – and suggested it to the eurosport guys for club night last night, however due to *cough* .. something, emmz and i went without them.

we decided that it was a very quick walk from our houses down to our new local and heres the proof ……

17:43 : prowsey texts me and tells me shes leaving and she’ll be at my house in 4 minutes

17:52 : 4 minutes my ass. prowsey is the first carriage on the g&t train and finally comes strolling past my driveway.
i jump up and get in line as the second carriage in the train

choo choo - g&t anyone?

the nature portion of the trek down to the local

we're parched! / photo by prowsey

18:06 : we arrive at backyard.

18:10 : drinks are ordered and beanbags by the pool are scored.
we’ve set up our tab, made friends with our barman and basically dont have to move for the rest of the evening.

the pinky finger salute to south gin and tonic / photo by prowsey

on the deck, in the beanbag, looking at the reflection of the pool

south gin and tonic, sunshine .. what more do you want from a local?

.. a tab .. thats what else you need / photo by prowsey

19:05 : we were horrified on monday at the number of typos in the menu (luckily it doesnt affect how good the food or drinks are) and we’d threatened to bring in a piece of paper with all the mistakes on it so nick our barman actually asked where said piece of paper was.
we decided to do them a favour … an A4 piece of paper later, we had proof read the main menu.

our backyard bartender - nick / photo by prowsey

then one of the owners came out and asked where the teachers were .. theres no teachers here!!
the backyard is the brainchild of steve and gary – who also own the kingslander in kingsland. it was steve who strolled on out and introduced himself and let us know that new menus were on the way. we asked for our advance copies so we could make sure that there were no mistakes in them. sadly the website also suffers from the same affliction. perhaps we can have another complimentary south gin and tonic for letting them know where they need to run the spell checker on that one too.

steve fed us fresh tomatoes from the barrel and gave us a run down on the ideas that they had for the bar and to say we were impressed is putting it lightly. we had dinner there on monday night and they’ve put a bit of a twist on the whole BBQ idea.
they have a huge hot plate and they call it kiwiyaki. you order your steak and your toppings and sides and they grill it up immediately the way you order it – whilst you are sitting around the grill if you like.

neil comes down to hang out / photo by prowsey

neil gets hungry so we decide to order some snacks. the homecut fries are the best ones we’ve tried in a long time and prowsey and i get a vegetarian pizza to share. its damn good with a nice thin base.

night time rolls around and it starts to get chilly. prowsey and i decide its time to settle up and start the jaunt home.
up at the bar, we find they have called our tab ‘2CHICKs’ which is highly approprirate. we are told that they are starting up loyalty cards and we will definitely have a piece of that pie thank you very much. we want numbers 1&2. for locals 1&2 (thats us) who apparently create trouble over in sector 3. thats by the pool. so sector 3 is our new quiz night team name. brilliant – cheers for that steve!