Thetownend.com

Am i right in thinking i have to go round the back way to get to the carpark or botellinos as in past bridgemead sainsburys

Yes.

nice one, cheers sam

Or you can head up on Wootton Basset Road and past the Toyota dealer

 You could leave the car under the bridges and climb in through the window, by the graffito which says No Nazi War...

ahh yes, i know the one. cheers

have a curry instead

What time you eating? I have a 20% off voucher but you have to eat between 9pm and 11pm unfortunately

ahh rubbish....tables for 8pm...cheers thought

He isn't.....he is chief dish washer :D

first day today.....i've had enough of picking potatos

Actually it just says valid between 9pm and 11pm, so technically if you weren't paying until later...but I bet they won't accept

Don't get me going arriba

just ordered mine.
got 12 cans of bulmers to wash it down too.nice....

I'm tempted to get a curry. Want to try that Taj Mahal place at Shaw Ridge but that would mean refraining from drinking any more as I'd need to collect

Enjoy your meal, I am about to have a microwaveable Chicken Feaster, accompanied with a glass of Tesco Cider

that tesco cider is fucking awful.i threw it away after a pint of it.
pay the bit extra and get the thatchers gold instead.

 :cry: Money's tight Arriba. I'm getting another 2 litre bottle of the supermarket brand shortly to see me through till late.

Feaster's chicken burger tastes alright actually, toasted the bun seperately and it is far less soggy than usual  :nod:

I'm sure fB would have taken it off your hands.

I get the Sainsburys Merrydown.........cheap but is from Bulmers and is a nice pint of Cider.

flammable would drink piss if it contained something to give him a buzz.
i found the coop own brand cider to be ok.

I thought they'd brought in rules regarding minimum pricing on booze. Has it been enforced yet? I'm still getting my 2 litre hit at £1.35, though it did spike at £1.49 a few weeks back which left me well disgruntled!

Each to their own I guess. I don't like Magners, has no bite to it at all.

granted,magners is quite sweet,but is a good drink for long sessions.

The next one up from the Tescos own brand, price-wise, is Orchard Farms (think that's the name). £1.89 a 2 litre bottle, can anyone reccommend it?  :pint:

3 bottles of wine should do me for tonight.

Looks like good nosh:

http://www.bottelinos.net/branches/swindon.aspx

Say hello to Bartolo for me.

Booked yourself a park bench yet?

Got a hot date with a wino lass on the beachfront at 21:30pm. Those waves lapping on the shore whilst sharing a can of Super Strength. Romance isn't dead!

Take a coat, gets cold at Coate Water these nights!

Coate Water, now that brings back happy memories  ;D Ah, how times change!

Great nosh, slightly on the pricey side, will take her at lunch time next time for one of the deals, :-)

I'm going to get on my high horse a bit here but if you thought the food was great, it wasn't too expensive ;)

OK, you have a point, but what im trying to say is, that im not used to paying as much as i didn for a meal, as to be honest im not really used to going out for meals. Its all a bit new to me :-)

My missus went to school with a couple of the Botta boys who now run the business.

That's all I've got to say about that.

What's the name of the Italian restaurant where the rocking emporium used to be? They serve up a lovely meal there and the garlic bread is very special, it's the future, as they say. Can anyone compare between this one and bottelinos?

Best Italian, in my opinion, is La Carbonara. That place makes my mouth water just thinking about it. (I've never eaten at Fratello's though.) To be honest almost all the Italians I've eaten at in Swindon are of a high standard.

Fratellos is decent, been there once. It takes a real man to finish the Calzone as it's so massive (I didn't).

I think the pizzas are Bottelinos forte, the pasta dishes are decent but don't make me want more. I go to Bottelinos quite a bit for lunch now, for a fiver the dishes are great value for money.

I still haven't been to La Carbonara but everyone I've spoken to who has been there has said good things.

The food's nice. But I hate the way they hang around the table and drool over my women (an Italian trait I know).

Doesnt it say no Nazi Army? Saw a picture of the old Bruce street bridges the other day, and they had the same graffiti on them.

Its amazing that graffiti has been there so long. You wonder if they actually preserve it. The tagging on the Wootton Bassett road bridge at Rushey Platt gets painted over every couple of months.

This one always makes me smile, don't know why

[url width=640 height=461]http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/72/31/1723109_9f489f40.jpg[/url]

M25

I chuckle too

la carbonara is indeed very very nice, but they were fully booked when i rang up, so decided to go bottelinos instead. I think i will work my way around the itallian restaurants in swindon.

Thats what most illegal immigrants do  ;)

i know i gotta move around, cant stay in one place too long can i, keep imigration on their toes and all that

It's probably because they've said "peas", as in the vegetable, instead of "peace", like having a peace of the pie.

It may well do....I'm glad somebody else knows what I'm talking about....I like anachronistic graffiti....Endean is a wanker.

Another fave is on the old Gorse Hill bridge.....Go to Mansfield.....

gorman out, on a wall of a now empty shop on the corner of ferndale rd-st marys grove.

Fuck off Oxford on the cycle path wall on the 420 coming in near Sainsburys.

We went to Bottelino's last week and found plastic in the meat balls. Not nice.

Not going there again.

It's probably because it's a great big fuck off peas of graffiti on an otherwise boring road.

You didn't like traditional Monza Plastic Meatballs?

Philistine.

'Why sack King' on the back of the South stand.

'DIAMANDIS OUT' outside his house in Newbury.

I do hate the US style gang tagging though. Despise it.

He should have made a feature of it. If he'd got someone to spray paint "DIAMANDIS IN" next to it, then got a big sliding cover which could have been slid over one or the other. Then he could have slid it over each one appropriately as he came and went, thus saving visitors time and effort in walking up the driveway, ringing the door bell etc

shake it all about, do the hokey cokey, etc etc.

by one of the turnstiles in the south stand there was 'wayne wheeler' etched in permanent marker for a few years

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_QLaRfh4dAgw/TRtUKKu-JEI/AAAAAAAABiY/ub5hRppujCc/s1600/Swindon+083+%25284%2529.jpg

Like this.

Fair play to the board for that.

There's a fine tradition of street murals in Swindon.  Good to see the club doing its bit.

What, and charge the club another 5 grand!!!

Back on topic. I love Bottelino's, great value (as Si said) for lunch and early evening deals. I'm sure other Italian's are better quality, but 4.99 for a pizza/pasta is exceptional.

I'm working my way through the South West's Italian eateries. Yet to try La Carbonara, but it looks good and all the reviews I've read are very positive.

Off to Zizzi in Cabot Circus next weekend (not me choice btw) but their Rustica Pizza's are fucking delicious.

A few years back, didn't this just say 'Peas'?

I've been in Bottelino's twice and had one awful meal and one OK meal.

Never tried La Carbonara, purely because it looks shit from the outside and has a shit name, but might have to try it at some point then.

Went to Gaetano's (Old Town) over Christmas and had a nice meal there.
Fratello's is nice too.

Don't let that put you off, the food is superb.

It's always busy, so you'll need to book well in advance if you don't want to be eating at a ridiculous time.

I thoroughly recommend the Risotto Scoglio.

I fucking love that. (We mentioned it before Samdy.) I think everything I've eaten there I've loved in fact.

yea, la carbonara is very good, good sized portions and very tastey food

yeah it did.there are numerous 'peas' tags around the m25

I don't think a single Italian restaurant in Swindon is bad. Although in Fabio's they once kept my £9 change as a 'tip'. For a £31 meal I thought that was off, and they didn't react well to me asking for it back. Not been back...

dont blame you for not going back, thats out of order. and anyway isnt a tip normaly 10% of the bill? not 30% :-)

I went for an Italian last night...........but he was a hard little fucker and i came off worse.

How many do you take with you?

fuck that, they're lucky to get an extra quid if they haven't done anything. smiling and being pleasant should be a basic of their job description

Exactly!! No-one ever tips me when they get out the pool for being a good lifeguard!!

Not sure about other swimmers but I tend to leave my cash and other valuables in the lockers when I go into the pool.

Talking of tipping, as I am sure most people will be aware, waiting staff in the states get paid pittence hapenny, which means that to ensure they get paid they HAVE to provide a good level of service. In the UK, you get some right stroppy staff, happy to take their minimum wage and provide godawful service.

Yep!! But I didn't feel like they were being false nice in the states - I think working in the hospitality industry is seen as more of a career over there - some people in the UK seem to see it as beneath  them??

We went to IHOP in Florida and was served by a really nice lady. We got chatting and she was working there because she couldn't get a job anywhere else. Apparently she had a degree in social work but just could not get a job in her chosen profession so had to work as a waitress to make ends meet. Florida is certainly struggling with the economic downturn, you can buy some lovely houses in North Florida for a bargain these days.

The thing which really annoys me about restaurants is the battle often faced just to get the bill at your table. Then paying for it often incurs a wait too. It seems to be even worse when you go for lunch, which, when you're obviously going during your lunch break, makes the problem even more annoying. Surely the staff should want you to leave quickly after your meal, fully paid up so that they can reset the table for other customers.

Often this is the reason I don't tip, no matter how good the service is up until then.