Cambridge buses and the Oak Bistro

There’s an app you can get in Cambridge to tell you where your nearest bus options are and to plan bus trips across the county. It’s a bit clunky and it doesn’t seem to include the guided bus so I don’t use it much but it does tell me that from where I live it’s 0.4 miles (curious mixture of the metric and traditional) to the nearest stop in the village which will get me a citi 8 to Cambridge and, interestingly only 0.2 miles further in the other direction to the Girton Farm stop for the citi 6. But sadly it doesn’t tell me how far it is to the guided bus stop in the village but MayMyRun tells me it’s about 2km and that’s where I headed off to last night.

I didn’t go for the close-by stop in the village because that get’s me on the citi 8 before its magical mystery tour of the village. The bus timetable allows this service to take 11 minutes to drive through Histon & Impington but it always feels much longer and in reality it often is. If I head for the guided bus stop I’ve got a choice: either the guided bus itself or the citi 8 at the end of its tour.

It’s not that easy. The two stops are maybe 100m apart and although both have Real Time Bus Information displays you can’t see both of them at the same time and neither of them when you’re at the decision point. So much for an integrated bus service. What we have are stand alone routes.

Anyway last night I was lucky and at the decision point I saw the citi 8 approaching and I’m fit enough to have been able to jog to the bus stop (I’d run a pleasant 7.5km earlier) and catch it and I was in Cambridge centre within about three quarters of an hour of leaving home. Add in the pleasure of using my bus pass to travel for free and I was ready for dinner and a glass or three of wine.

I was meeting an ex-colleague from the County Council and this was the latest in a series of maybe 6 dinners at the Oak Bistro on Lensfield Road in Cambridge (http://www.theoakbistro.co.uk/).

This place is seriously good. It’s rated 8 of 537 in Cambridge on tripadvisor but for my money it’s the best. It scores on so many levels but number 1 must be its simplicity and lack of pretention. Good food (not cheap), well presented and expertly served. A very, very pleasant all round experience.

It started ‘badly’. I was early because of my earlier bus success and was looking forward to a slow Czech beer. There used to be one on the menu but no more. That’s bad news. I had to content myself with a Peroni. No matter but I complained. My friend enjoyed a Leffe.

We both had scallops to start. Not cheap but generous. Not the normal 3 or 4 the size of a thumbnail but 5 big fat juicy pieces. Then I had cod and my friend the sea bream. And not to be limited by unnecessary rules on wines and food we both had glasses of Malbec. We ended up sharing a strawberry cheesecake, I had a desert wine, she had an Armangac, and then real espressos to wind up.

Could anything be faulted? Our first table faced the kitchen door so we moved but then I suppose somebody has to sit there. The food came quickly, was  the service too swift? No matter we stayed around for a good half hour after our coffees. And I will continue to grumble about the choice of beers. But the menu is super, they say it features ‘classic modern British – European dishes’, with nothing too fancy and nothing too plain. Good Goldilocks stuff. And the wine list is wide-ranging with plenty of choice by the glass.

And to finish off a perfect evening I got to the bus stop  to catch a late bus home for free  instead of the £10 which a taxi would have cost.