Category Archives: Going Out

Pauline’s leaving drinks at Long Acre

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Pauline had her “leaving” drinks at Long Acre tonight. The good thing about Long Acre is that there is a lot of seating around the place but at this time of year it pays to call ahead to reserve a booth. Particularly if there’s a large group of you. Disappointingly the happy hour had been retracted probably because its that time of year when people are having their Christmas drinks and will pay anything to be at a venue.

The fact that Long Acre is closely located to Leicester Square and not too far from Covent Garden meant the place was ram packed. Getting to the bar was quite a challenge with the best bet being to team up and for the two of you to get some space.

I wouldn’t say Long Acre was inventive by any stretch of the imagination and, if slightly seedy, served its purpose – as a central location for drinking. I think most people had a good time though it was difficult to talk to those who were seated. A pretty easy place to get smashed in all honesty.

Dirty Martini

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Its nights like these which makes me wonder sometimes why is it exactly that I drink. Its a well known fact that half of the people of Asian descent suffer from this thing known as an Alcoholic Flush. Interestingly, aside from the going absolutely tomatoe red, one of the other effects is that I’m less likely to become an alcholic! Ha!

I thought that by indulging now and again I was getting my body used to the alcohol and I thought that I was getting over my particularly nasty reaction (all the symptoms that wikipedia says I am likely to get I do: dizziness, nausea, headaches, an (exteremely) increased pulse, drowsiness, and occasional skin swelling and itchiness.) Tonight it was back in full force I’m afraid. Check out the evidence:

Before downing one martini After downing one martini

The Dirty Martini is a pretty good find in Covent Garden. Its a cosy spot in a basement location and if you want a seat its best to get there for before 5.30pm and all the business people come in.

The happy hour prices (until 9pm!) of half price martini is a bargain and the martini choices are fab (gotta go the Chocolate Martini … weakness!)

The Dirty Martini gets very crowded though and the bar is very small so you’ll have to exercise some patience to get your yummy martinis! Don’t worry – its worth it!

Paper

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Tonight Pauline was intent on having a proper girl’s night out which involved dressing up, dinner and dancing. She seems to have a fairly decent talent for getting us all out for a girl’s night out! In all my time here London I don’t think we’ve really ever done going out properly with a group of us from work – more often than not we just roll drinks after work into drinks and dancing at a club. Pauline wanted our night to be fairly special so Natalie suggested she could At Dinnerget us on to the list for Paper. I’m obviously not Cool People because I’d never heard of it! But apparently Paper has earned a reputation of being quite the high-profile celebrity club.

Before heading to Paper, which didn’t open until 10pm, we grabbed a bite to eat at Imperial China. It felt a bit weird eating Chinese dressed as we were that’s for sure! The meal was pretty nice though seemed quite expensive for one plate of food (over £20). Sadly this is also where Vishali and Sandra departed us for the night for their respective reasons (too much partying and bad knee?) So, it was left up to Pauline, Jenny, Shona, Natalie and I to strut our stuff.

Paper is in the lower ground/basement of Café Royal which seemed kind of strange. Apparently entry is by VIP list only and at a cost of £15. When we got downstairs the bar area was fairly empty. Granted it was 10.30pm but still. There seemed to be a restaurant are but most people were streaming out of the joint rather than hanging around. I think by about 11pm or 11.30pm the girls started coming in. Just girls. Then a few guys but not that many. I’d say in the end it was 70% girls and 30% boys. Here is us waiting for the dance floor to open up:

By about midnight, I reckon, the doors to another room opened up. I think this was the main dance area. It was kind of manic as everyone tried to squeeze into the place. People were not very polite is all I can say. We followed everyone else in and managed to find a bit of space to get groovy. The only thing was that it was very difficult because the room was heaving and we were constantly being pushed back and forth. The funniest moments were when guys (and occasionally girls) would just come up and dance against your back without really dancing with you if you can picture. In addition to the room we were in I think there were also supposed to be a few other rooms – probably for the VVVIP unlike us! We were a bit too shy to have a proper search around so stuck to the main room for dancing:

In addition to the room we were in I think there were also supposed to be a few other rooms – probably for the VVVIP unlike us! We were a bit too shy to have a proper search around so stuck to the main room for dancing. We were in there for a couple of hours – the music was now and then acceptable but for the most part pretty rubbish. Don’t know if it was just the DJ that night but it certainly wasn’t my style.

Overall I was expecting great things of Paper but in the end it was a disappointment. The place seemed to be filled with posers and try hards. For example, there were a couple of groups around the place who were there for their Christmas do and whenever they bought bottles of vodka the bartenders would come charging through with the bottles held high in the air with giant sparklers and then proceed to hand them to the revelers who in turn would wave the sparklers in the air. It just wasn’t cool. At least the bar staff were quite nice and one in particular very cute!

Mirela’s Name Day

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The best thing about a multi-cultural society is that no matter how much you think you know about other cultures there is always something new to learn. My latest learning, from Mirela, is about Name Day. Nearly every day of the year is dedicated to a saint or martyr of Orthodox Christians. When someone is named after one of those saints, then that day of the year becomes their Name Day. In Greece, and perhaps in other European nations, Name Days seem more celebrated than birthdays. However, in contrast to birthdays where we make a fuss of the celebrant, on Name Days it is the celebrant who makes a fuss of us.

Today it was Mirela’s Name Day (she is named after Maria) so she took us to our local to celebrate.

The Church

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OutisdeInsideFor the last six months Pauline has been trying to arrange for a group of us to go to The Church at Kentish Town. It seems to be an institution here in London, well since 1979 anyway, for antipodeans. Having moved venues at least five times in the last nearly 30 or so years the flock has nevertheless followed until today the congregation numbers in the hundreds.

I wasn’t actually sure what to expect with The Church except that I thought it was going to be as dirty and disgusting as the Walkabout with lots of really really drunk and sleazy revelers and not much else going on. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised at how today turned out. Sure everyone was pretty much wasted not too long after noon (probably something to do with the three-drink-drink-cards you purchase at the door) but for some reason it just seemed much more relaxed, friendly and that everyone seemed to just be there to enjoy themselves. Everyone talks to everyone so there is no posing – thank goodness!

My Very Own Julian

To make the bar more efficient, and its in the interest of The Church to get as many drinks out there as possible seeing as how there is only a 3.5 hour window for it, you purchase drink tickets which entitle you to three drinks at a time. And if you can’t hold three drinks at once handy plastic bags, which look oh so elegant when attached to your jeans, are supplied. Of course singles can be bought but why go through the hassle of getting only one drink when you can get three! 🙂

The Church is very serious about making sure everyone has fun and that no one is hurt or that nothing wrong happens therefore all around the room there are Church Wardens standing guard. Today there didn’t seem to be too much need for them though perhaps that was the point of their presence.

So, what exactly makes The Church different from all the other pubs in London? Well, it’s the whole package I guess – unlike anything I’ve experienced anywhere else. This is the Order Of Service according to the website:

1 A Warden will welcome you to The Church This the build up of anticipation as everyone lines up outside starting at 11am (a full hour before The Church begins its service.) The Wardens walk up and down the line ensuring no one is misbehaving (there are strict policies against drinking on the street) and sell you the three-drink-drink-cards. This is the chance to also eye up those who have come in fancy dress.
2 Time to get into the spirit This is the time for the hymns – an anthem of classic rock tunes that has the room rocking and everyone belting out at the their loudest. This really does get the energy levels of the crowd up.
3 It’s Show Time! After some generally lewd comedy by the MC comedian its time to get the show on the road. Today we were privileged to have a male and female strippers. That’s right – the highlight of the afternoon – the strippers! Its supposed to be very light-hearted but I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to be any of the victims today. The female stripper was particularly risqué with her victims. Lots of cream and even fire at one stage. When she first came out she stripped down to her underwear and went topless. We thought that was it because then there was a 20-30 minute break for drinks and more singing and dancing by the crowd. Then the show started again and the male stripper came out. He did a lot of posing around on stage and teasing us but when he stripped down didn’t the wolf-whistling start. To my surprise he took everything off and then did things that, I’m blushing now, I can’t possibly mention! Then the female stripper came back out and this time she also took everything off and proceeded to do even more disgusting things, if that is even possible, than the male stripper. It was all quite funny to be honest.
4 Now for the Boat Race. After a bit of a break it was time for the Boat Race which is basically a competition between teams of about 4 or 5 to see which team could skull a can of beer the quickest (each member having to skull theirs before passing on the baton so to speak.). It was funny and entertaining but a wet t-shirt competition (the alternative event) might have been even more funny and entertaining. Ha ha.
5 Finally time to party hard! To close out the day more classic rock songs were belted out and all girls were invited up on to the stage to strut their stuff. As is the usual case one girl, at least, got carried away and threw her top off. The funniest bit was when the Church Wardens wouldn’t let her retrieve it!

In addition to what was going-on on stage there is a camera person who does the sweep of Cleavagethe crowds and projects the video/still footage on to the two giant screens next to the stage. If there is one guarantee at The Church it is if you’re a girl and showing cleavage you will be picked on!

I had an absolute blast at The Church today and though I probably wouldn’t become one of the weekly faithful as an Aussie or Kiwi you can’t really say you’ve been to London until you’ve had The Church experience. Therefore gather your mates and turn up at 12 midday any Sunday for an afternoon of singing, shenanigans, dancing and of course drinking. You won’t regret it.

Eating as Locals Do – Sugo Pizza and Pasta

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I’m ashamed to admit it but I don’t know my neighbourhood at all. I’ve lived in my shoebox for over three years and I can probably count on one hand the number of local restaurants (and by local I mean within a 500 metre radius) I’ve actually been to. This of course does not include the conveniently located KFC Restaurant. 🙂 Tonight Bertha treated us (that is, Mirela, her family and I) to dinner at a local Italian Pizza and Pasta placed called Sugo. I didn’t think I could fit anything in to my stomach after the feast that was Ping Pong this afternoon but dim sum is tricky – at the time you eat you feel really full and you feel like you’ve stuffed yourself but not too much later on you actually realise you’re hungry! At any rate it wasn’t until about 9.30pm that we sat down to eat.

I can honestly hold my hand up and say that I’ve never noticed Sugo before despite how many times I’ve done my grocery shopping at Tesco and M&S on the opposite side of the road. The restaurant has quite a homely atmosphere with the walls covered in lots of paintings of Italian landscapes and peoples. The menu seemed quite authentic and naturally offers a range of pizzas, pastas and risottos as well as other main meal type dishes. It was unfortunate we were too full to enjoy something from the dessert menu which also looked quite delicious. As dishes are purportedly cooked from scratch you are also welcome to make requests which the kitchen, within reason, seemed happy to accept.

The Ping Pong Experience – Southbank Style 2

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In a weekend of late birthday celebrations today it was Nate’s turn to celebrate his. However, he wasn’t nearly as tardy as me being only about five weeks overdue instead of three months! We had such a good time at Ping Pong the last time we came here that he opted to repeat it again but this time taking advantage of the Lazy Sumdays offer of all you can eat dim sum for £16.50. The weather today was atrocious so actually it was the perfect spot to spend the afternoon drinking and eating. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again Ping Pong have the most amazing drink concoctions. Even though I was limiting myself to the ice tea coolers it was still absolutely delicious. The kumquat mojitos on the other hand were going down a treat with everyone else.

For today’s event we were once again in the upstairs section near the bar which provided much more comfortable and casual seating than in the downstairs restaurant section. Surprisingly, though it was absolutely heaving downstairs, we pretty much had all of upstairs to ourselves. Unfortunately this had a little bit of an impact on the service we received. Our female waitress, admittedly only on her second shift on the job, was absolutely rubbish as she gave us confusing instructions, wasn’t very friendly and just generally didn’t pay sufficient attention to our table so we were often left waiting with empty drinks and an empty table (that is, once we’d gobbled down the round of dishes we’d ordered.) However I have to give special mention to one of the floating male waiters – not only was he aware enough to realise that the temperature upstairs was tremendously warm (immediately adjusting the air-conditioning system), he was extremely friendly and he tried to give us the better deal on our bill by showing us what our bill would be with ordinary charging and under the Lazy Sumdays offer. Turns out without the deal our bill would have been cheaper (which was a great surprised because its fair to say we definitely pigged out.) Of course this was a bit against Ping Pong sop, though he didn’t realise it at the time, and as a result we ended up getting an even better deal because to make up for it although they eventually had to charge us under the Lazy Sumdays offer they took off one person’s meal meaning it was the cheapest deal yet! Bargain.

30 Years in the Making – Part Trois – Day out at Willen Lake

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FINALLY the day for celebrating my 30th birthday had arrived – a day out at Willen Lake Milton Keynes. I know it sounds like I’ve been celebrating turning 30 for a number of months now but this was the official celebration even though technically it is actually over three months after my actual birthday and even though this is probably the third such celebration! I guess there is almost a kind of pattern in all these three’s appearing everywhere.

I decided that instead of having a traditional get together I’d opt for having a day out doing various activities at a venue away from London. Of course this meant a bit of a logistical nightmare in getting people firstly to agree to come out and do some crazy things and then getting everyone to commit to a date. Not unexpectedly, considering just how far in advance I’d been planning this, there was a lot of faffing about with attendance numbers which made it difficult to firm the booking up. In the end we had a decent size group of thirteen comprising: Akhlaq, Andrew, Caroline, Catherine, James, Jenny, Jon, Julian, Mel, Sandra, Steve and Shona.

In hindsight choosing a venue and the activities actually seemed relatively easy in comparison to finalising numbers – I knew that I definitely wanted to have archery as one of the activities as its something I’ve always wanted to do but found difficult to organise so I started with that. Willen Lake at Milton Keynes seemed to offer it as a possibility and when I found out they had a high ropes course as well it seemed perfect. At least Milton Keynes has relatively good transport links, with the train taking anywhere between 30-60 minutes from London Euston, so getting there wasn’t going to be too much hassle.

Thankfully the weather today played its part and even though it wasn’t too warm or sunny the rain pretty much stayed away for most of the day which made it quite pleasant.

Up first for the day was the high ropes course that was actually run by Aerial Extreme. One of the funniest bits of the day was when we were brought over to the course how everyone stood outside staring at the course for ages before coming in! Its like they were nervous or something. 🙂

The actual course was very different from the Go Ape ropes course we’d been to before at Bracknell. There the course was more consistent with a ski slope with each “activity” having a discrete beginning and end (normally in a giant zip line to the ground.) At Aerial Extreme you work your way through a number of rope/wooden/tire bridges and wall climbs and horizontal cargo nets at one level and featuring a couple of zip lines into vertical cargo nets – all without breaking – before climbing up to the next level and repeating the exercise at a higher level with even more difficult rope/wooden/tire bridges and wall climbs and another zip line before you finally climb to a final third level. It is here you experience the money maker – a giant drop to the ground. In actually this is the most fun activity of the course, despite EVERYONE watching you and calling out a count down! and it was only those with class who managed to stay on their feet – I think James was the first to keep his footing followed by Mel and Jenny. The rest of us ended up on our @sses!

I tried to get photos of everyone on the course (which is darn difficult when you’re also trying not to fall whatever metres it was to the ground nor lose the camera in the process) and though those near me were more likely to be victim to my camera then anyone else. I think Steve was the only person I didn’t get a photo of in action so one of him kitting up is the best I could do:

Steve Jenny Shona Andrew Julian Caroline
Mel Akhlaq James Sandra Jon Moi

The course was a lot of hard work and even as I write this now my hands are sweating just thinking about some of the hairier moments. I think most people, even those a little bit nervous from the height, did fantastically well and no one, thankfully, had to bail. The hardest tasks for me was jumping over the giant gaps – I thought my shorter legs would not be able to handle it but in those cases you just had to trust that you could jump and make it. Of course all around the course you were at all time secured to a safety line so generally its very safe.

After the high ropes course it was off for a well deserved break and barbeque lunch which was absolutely delicious – especially the barbeque chicken and gorgeous homemade lime cheesecake which had THE most amazing biscuit base. Mmmm …

After stuffing ourselves absolutely over lunch it was time to head over to the archery. We weren’t sure what to expect but we definitely had a lot of fun trying to work it out. I think there were quite a few lucky shots in the end because I’m sure I overheard quite a few comments that seemed to indicate that no one had a clue about lining up their bow. Time seemed to fly and before we knew it the session was over!

Actually I’m only just realising now just how competitive everyone is! The guy who was teaching us was a bit casual about the competition when he first set it up on a team basis. In the end everyone clamoured for a rematch at an individual level. I think it was Mel who was the clear William Tell today.

Finally, the day finished on a whimsical note with a go at Willen Lake’s crazy golf course. It was only a small course but that didn’t prevent everyone once again showing off their competitive spirit! LOL.

Willen Lake itself is a beautiful venue with plenty of activities to occupy in addition to those we indulged in today including sailing, windsurfing, powerboating and cable towing. I can’t way to come back in the summer and try out some of the watersports on offer. To quote something that is a bit English I had an absolutely smashing day today and I was very happy to share it with such a great bunch of friends. Can’t wait for our next adventure.

Imperial China – Curry-oke Night

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I’ve written about the Curry Club before and I’ve written about Imperial China before and tonight the two have been combined to create a night that will go down in history as Curry-oke night. As the Curry Club’s traditional MO is to, well as the name indicates, find a nice curry house to explore a visit to Imperial China seemed a bit odd. I guess after over 50 Curry Club events it was time for a change.

A surprisingly large number of people seemed up for this outing (with over 30 expressing an interest) though as expected by the time tonight arrived we lost a few including Jules (“sick”) and Jenny (“celebrating passing her driving test”.) No matter, we still had a decent turn out and managed to fill the three tables in our private karaoke room.

By the time we got to Imperial China at around 7pm I was surprised to find that the other karaoke rooms were already in full swing and full voice! Our fellow karaokers included companies such as Disney and Mitsui and I think its fair to say recoding artists in the making they were not. Ha ha. Interestingly Imperial China have not opted to sound proof any of the rooms, or it didn’t seem that way, as the music and singing was very loud in the corridors indeed. It made for a good energetic atmosphere though.

The food

Before we could get into the singing or wailing or whatever you choose to call it we first had to get down some nosh and, for those requiring it, a bit of dutch courage. Though lets face it the alcohol was going to flow irrespective of whether or not people were nervous about the karaoke! The set menu course we’d gone for offered the following:

Mixed Hors D’oeuvres. They could have tried to make the presentation a bit nicer.
Aromatic Crispy Duck served with Pancakes Unfortunately no photo was taken of this but the plate for the duck was huuuge
Deep Fried Squid with Pepper together with Spicy Prawns, Sweet & Sour Pork, Lemon Chicken, Fried Scallop with Broccoli, Fried Beef with Double Mushrooms, Fried Lamb with Ginger & Spring Onion, Fried Rice, Fried Noodle

The food was all fairly tasty and good generous portions. Unfortunately our table had no lazy suzy so it was a bit hard for everyone to get access to all the dishes easily. Still we managed and I think seriously over-ate. The service was a little slap dash and for a place like Imperial China a bit disappointing. Maybe they were trying to balance availability of staff with giving the groups in the rooms privacy. Still, it didn’t seem to difficult to keep the flow of wine bottles constant.

The songs

Supposedly singing tonight was on a strictly volunteer only basis so to aid that a hat went around and people could write down what song they wanted to sing and then when it was drawn out of the hat it would be their time to shine. This system worked fairly well as a lot of people seemed happy to get up and make a fool of themselves. When I say make a fool of themselves I’m not knocking their ability (or inability for the most part) to sing but more the fact that some people when they got mics in their hands just were out of control. From all this karaoke, I’ve realized, is not about having a great voice but about being an entertainer so no one cares if you’ve got a crap voice, only that you are good at hamming or camping things up.

Sandra and I really really really didn’t want to get up and sing but unfortunately got dragged up to do a spice girls number with Pauline, Kelly and Ali:

I was not impressed but once we got up there it wasn’t so bad as most people, as everyone had done all night, were singing and dancing along with us anyway.

All good things must come to an end eventually and after a long medley of Beatles songs, where everyone got very emotional and touchy-feely it seems (some more than others!), it was time for the night to end.

Overall it was a fun night though I think I will take care next time not to sit under the speakers. My ears are still ringing!