The Effra Hall, Brixton, London

After our disappointment at the kitchen closure at the Elephant and Castle we opted for lunch at a chinese place (I’ll cover the Dragon Castle in the wine review at the end of the month), then went down to Brixton to have a ramble around.  Truly we should have gone down there to start because the food on offer is varied, fragrant, obviously spicy (a lot of Caribbean and even some authentic Mexican places).  Brixton and Brixton Market rules.

A trundle around the neighbourhood and we wound up back close to the market and decided to pop into the Effra Hall for a quick one or two.  The bartender was making time with the ladies so we were nearly ready to piss off someplace else when he finally recognised our presence.  Jackie ordered a large V&T but by the time the V was on top of the ice and lime there was very little room for T…excellent. I had a Red Stripe and since she had her truly large portion of grain neutral spirits I had time for another half.

The crowd, like the neighbourhood, was an even mix of descendants of the Windrush and descendants of white yuppies but the music was dance hall dub and the atmosphere was perfect local dive.  This is a quite a nice little local in this nicest section of affordable London.