The Midland Hotel, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire

I got home from the mini-pub-run and washed up, called the woman, then walked off to slake the Great Hunger with a second Thai meal of the week (this one had a lot to live up to after Chiangmai House on Monday…the best Thai I’ve had in ten years). My target, the Midland Hotel, did not disappoint but was still only a faint shadow of the Chiangmai House.

I had some lamb stir fried with beans and wide rice noodles along with a couple of Carlings. During the meal, I enjoyed a very tight match between Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal (big crowd in the bar area doing much the same), and snarfed down some of the best dining I should expect for the price. Keep this in mind if you are in town and on a budget (and the crowd is fairly copacetic, too).