Cardiff Arts Institute

29 Park Place, Cathays [map]


What was once Incognito is now the confusingly-named Cardiff Arts Institute, an eccentrically-decorated bar/eatery/music venue/gallery.

With regards to that bloke on the right: it's not obligatory to have a little cry on the way in, although some people do find it helps.

Professionals that we are, we don't let it put us off though.


Our reward: a veritable chorus line of lagers. Beautiful. Note also teetering stack of board games.

We hate board games.


The overall effect of the decor is akin to visiting a branch of Ikea while mashed off your face on high-powered blotter acid. (We're guessing, obviously.)


We're with Nicki from Cardiff Bites, who is taking copious notes - making this, between us, the most scrupulously chronicled bar meal of all time.


Incredible self-reviewing art installation.


Yikes.

The Woodville

1-5 Woodville Road, Cathays [map]


This Scream-owned joint is a student institution.

Who knows how many snakebite and blacks have been downed here over the years? (Do students still drink snakebite and black, or have we just inadvertently revealed ourselves to be the old-timers that we really are?)


Plenty of snazz going on here. After all, what's a pint without some bunting?

Remarkably, there are seven different flavours of lager on tap, which seem to have been lined up strictly in order of sophistication, from the wholly unappealing Carlsberg on the left to the highfalutin Staropramen on the right.

We hedged our bets and went for the safe middle ground of Foster's. You know where you are with Foster's.


Christ, there's a lot going on with this decor. Fairy lights, purple stripes, wall-mounted TV sets, a red-and-white check tablecloth… and why is there a hymn board with the word 'Aaaah' daubed on it?


Further into the pub and we seem to have reached the mother lode of young people enjoying themselves.

By enjoying themselves, we mean trying to drink enough to be able to forget about the fact that they'll each have around £15,000-worth of debt when they graduate.


I think we were trying for something a bit arty with this shot. Didn't really work.

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Pen & Wig

1 Park Grove, Cathays [map]


We've always liked the Pen & Wig. We once bumped into the manager on a beach in Minehead at about five in the morning (it’s a long story), which served only to endear the place to us further.


Pretty standard stuff at the bar, although we like the sign that begins, "What's going on?" It's something we'd like to know ourselves.


The front seating area: a bit of chat, a bit of eating, a bit of drinking. And a ruddy great motorbike on the telly. Note also classic pub carpet.


Not only does the Wig offer a generous array of nuts and other savoury snacks, it's also got the stickiest tables in Cardiff. Try as we might, we just could not prise that HP Sauce off the table top. They really do need to invest in some Mr Muscle.


Out the back there's a decent-size patio area, which is - predictably enough - largely populated by shivering smokers.


There's clearly never a dull moment here, from the promise of £1.79 Foster's on Mondays to Sunday's "Big Fat Roast Dinners". Although, on reflection, that does sound slightly unappetising.

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Gassy Jack's

39-41 Salisbury Road, Cathays [map]


It's quite the building, this - it doesn't really look like a pub so much as the sort of soul-destroyingly bleak motel you'd find half-way up the M6. We didn't let that put us off though.


Gassy Jack's has been through a variety of redesigns over the past decade or so.

Whereas it was once the destination of choice for the university's women's rugby team when they wanted to down pitchers of lager and put their bras on their heads, it's now attempting to cultivate a more refined class of student drinker.

Largely via the medium of outsize red lampshades.


All sorts of little woody nooks around the place.

The best feature is the balcony though. Many years ago, we received quite a telling off after playing Jenga up there and inadvertently allowing the entire structure topple to the ground floor. Ah, heady days.


It's lost some of its personality and sense of danger since then - you no longer have to worry that a pile of Jenga bricks could land on your head at any given moment - but it remains an inviting student haunt.

Don't forget, you can now follow us via the achingly modern Twitter, as well as the slightly less trendy Facebook and the positively old-fashioned MySpace

The Mackintosh

Mundy Place, Cathays [map]


You join us just after we have fled the Lynchian hellscape of The End.

As we stumble, blinking, into the daylight - never have the backstreets of Cathays looked so beautiful - we're desperate to recover with a pint in an alehouse in which being confronted by a dwarf who talks backwards would actually be a surprising turn of events.


The Mackintosh, then, is reassuringly conventional - from the Carlsberg/Stella/Carling triumvirate to the garish decor, which is reminiscent of a Little Chef circa 1989.

We half expect to be given a free lolly on the way out.


Spacious, too. Just look at all that exciting stuff they've managed to squeeze in: big plasma telly, internet jukebox, quiz machine, pool table. There's even an on-site cash machine.

And with that harsh fluorescent lighting, it really is like a shopping mall. Albeit one that has a single retail outlet that only sells booze and burgers.


Check out those fragrant young people having fun. It's what The OC would be like if it was shot in south Wales instead of southern California.


Shame about the casual misogyny though.

The End

2 Wyeverne Road, Cathays [map]


Never has a pub been more appropriately named.

What was once a towering booze emporium is now up for sale, while eking out what must surely be the last few weeks of its existence in an utterly dismal fashion.


It gives us no satisfaction to report that drinking here is a wholly depressing experience.

They're clearly running down the stock, so half the taps are off. And the fridges in most people's houses have more grog in them than the ones behind the bar here.

As the barman pulled our pints, he actually rested his head on the pump, as if the ennui was just too much for him. We had every sympathy.


Still, the pool tables are free, as a result of them stuffing carrier bags down the pockets. Decent tables, too.

They even have proper 'D's - none of that anywhere-behind-the-line nonsense.


But even a couple of games of complimentary cue sports couldn't disguise the fact that it was just us, a barman on suicide watch and, apropos of nothing, some ear-splitting handbag house.

Bit of an odd dynamic, to be honest.


Yours for £495,000. In fairness, there's a decent boozer trying to get out here. It's all down to you now, James A Baker.