When bacon finished work that evening, I took him for a walk along the riverside…stunning views of people kayaking and swans racing calms my soul. There were loads and loads of bars along the riverside, in between apartment blocks and office blocks. Lovely.
I do love the idea of commuting to work in a boat, but unfortunately it is not to be with me perpetually landlocked 
Seeing that it was a rare sunny day, we decided to stop somewhere for a drink. With overwhelming choice, bacon was being his usual undecided self. So I made an executive decision and we stopped at the Apple – an award-winning Bristollian institution serving up world-class ciders in a beatiful converted barge.
Showcasing an extremely huge variety of traditional ciders & perries, it was a huge task to choose one. I went with a cider named Happy Daze, whilst bacon went for the Cheddar Valley, which came out in a shocking Fanta orange color.
Mine was pleasantly tasty – sweet organic apples imparting the pressed apple juice flavour with no nasty after taste. The Cheddar Valley was a different story altogether – maybe it’s because you would really expect it to taste like Fanta Orange! It’s truly not that bad, but I had slight issues with the bitter after taste. The beautiful relaxing riverside views more than make up for it though – and with about 40 different variety of ciders at any one time, I’m pretty sure everyone would find their favourite cider in there. Traditional Cider always reminds me of the Cider Bus in Glastonbury – and this Cider Boat kinda makes up for it 
The Apple Cider Co. Ltd
Welsh Back, Bristol,
BS1 4SB
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Friday night’s dinner was for me to curb my craving for fresh sashimi. Mmm…love sashimi. So we went to Masa, which was just literally around the corner from our hotel
There was the usual teppanyaki counter in a corner with a more central sushi counter complete with conveyour belt. Not many things going around seeing that it was still fairly early, so we took a window seat instead
I am starting to see a trend here. The sushi master and the bloke manning the bar were both Malaysian. Chatting in Hokkien, they probably thought they were pretty safe from anyone eavesdropping in on them. They were literally shouting over my head about how long will it take them to do their laundry that night – whilst I tried very hard to contain my smirk. Why is it that most sushi chefs in the UK are from Malaysia? I don’t think its because we look Japanese…so why? Bizzare.
We ordered salmon & tuna to start off -yum.
Bacon had the chilli beef udon – which came as ramen and way too overly seasoned with MSG. Not nice
I ordered the tempura bento set – it is not often that I go for bentos, but I really fancied miso soup and the wakame salad.
The rice was nicely cooked, the wakame salad was properly dressed – however, the tempura was definately undercooked. It does not even look brown – not to mention that the the sweet potato & aubergine was not even cooked. An anti-climax definately. At £10 I guess its not that expensive, but I would pay an extra £5 for a properly cooked tempura. Not to mention that one of the tempura was what seemed like leftover cooked teriyaki chicken coated in tempura flour….like HUH?
The fresh sashimi did put me on, but our main course was definately a dissapointment. Not somewhere I would recommend wholeheartedly – however if you’re going for the sashimi only then this place is not bad.
Masa Japanese Restaurant
42-46 Baldwin St
Bristol, BS1 1PN
0117 929 3888
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