DanSumption

Depends what you class as regeneration - I'm not aware of any building work yet, but certainly things are moving forward. I'm particularly excited about the recent news on the Old Town Hall.

Yup, it is really cut off at the moment, shame as I seem to remember it being quite a bustling area when I first moved to Sheffield in the late 90s. Hopefully the Castlegate regeneration that's finally starting to get underway will help to link it up better to the city centre.

I went during Tramlines, it was lovely, really friendly folks, relaxed vibe, good beers and the G+Ts looked impressive too. Am looking forward to visiting again when it's next open. Would be lovely to see this part of town a bit livelier, as it's been dead these last few years.

I'm not aware of any Michelin-starred restaurants that charge extortionate fees. Certainly, they charge more than non Michelin-starred restaurants, but in every case that I know of that's because they spend more on the quality of the ingredients, the staff, the premises, everything. The other thing about extortion is that it is very hard if not impossible to avoid paying it. Whereas it is so easy to avoid paying for a Michelin-starred meal, that very few people I know have actually done so.

You don't (normally) judge a Michelin-starred restaurant by its fixed lunch menu though. I just too a look at the Hand & Flowers' website. Their main courses range in price from £24.50 to £38.50. The Milestone's range from £11.95 to £14.95 on the evening menu or £7.95 to £9.95 on the lunch menu. Back when they had the separate upstairs and downstairs menus, the upstairs certainly had aspirations towards Michelin-starredness (and many of the dishes they served were good enough for that accolade, but it wasn't consistent enough). Nowadays it's much more gastropub-style (and very good too!)

Just a quick update to say that the Strafford Arms re-opened this weekend under a new chef - food looks amazing, can't wait to go!

That catches me out every time I go drinking in London. Wouldn't have expected it in Sheffield though, bad show!

Just as an update what chrispin2 said above, we are still proudly baking bread (and cakes, and pies) at Cat Lane, which we supply to shops & cafés all over Sheffield. We've now established ourselves at the bakery as a workers co-operative - still working closely with Beanies, but as a separate company - and we have a brand new website at http://www.catlanebakery.com/ We'll be blogging regularly there, and will soon be adding posts which address some of the earlier questions on this thread, i.e. what is "artisan" bread, what is "real flour", and why do so few bakeries use it nowadays.

Just a little update to let you know that Cat Lane Bakery is going from strength to strength. We have recently formed an independent workers co-operative, and are supplying shops and cafés all over the city. We hope to be at some more farmers markets soon. We've just launched our new website - it's still under construction, so not all of the product pages are complete, but you can at least find out where to buy our bread, cakes and pies! It's at http://www.catlanebakery.com/

If we're going to bring it down to philosophy... "Keg is dead". Brooklyn's black chocolate stout on keg is a Keg. Therefore Brooklyn's black chocolate stout on keg is dead. Agree?

Irony is, I actually am a grandad. But I get fed up to the back gills with people saying "keg beer, oh no, it'll all end in disaster! Remember Hitler? Eh? Eh?" Judge the beer by how the beer tastes, not by your brown-tinted memories of the 70s.

Get back in the box, grandad. If the beer tastes good, who cares if it comes from a keg? This is not Watney's Red Barrel we're taking about here.

I guess what I'm saying is: it's beer. Drink as much of it as you feel like drinking. Or as little. When I'm buying beer in foreign countries, the beer is rarely served in halves and pints, but that doesn't cause me any problems at all: I keep buying more until I feel I've had enough, or I fall over. Simple!

Except if you want more than a half but less than a pint. I agree, it's a lot less useful than the thirds, but it does feel like about the right amount for some of the stronger beers.

Well I for one am bloody pleased that I can order 10% beers in 1/3-pint measures, rather than having to always order half a pint of the stuff.