For our first review in quite some time we bring you something rare and new. A cool bar for uncool people South West of Hyde Park Corner.
‘What?’ I hear you cry! 'Why would we stray out of our comfort zone to spend time in a part of London where trends go to die? What could possibly draw us to the environs of Tarquin and Hettie?' The reason lies on Battersea Bridge Road, and particularly between the hours of 11:30 and 5pm on a Saturday during which the famous Bunga Bunga Brunch takes place.
It is worth visiting at other times, it just seems that if we are going to be advocating needless drinking, we may as well give it a purpose and some lining.
In fact it retains the atmosphere of unbridled fun, which is fully let loose at brunch, throughout the week; that is, if you can deal with the proliferation of garish corduroys and signet rings. Why, then, focus on the brunch? The first reason being that brunch is normally a fairly sedate and contemplative affair.
You’ll be struggling to finish a Bloody Mary or a Bucks Fizz wondering whether you actually like any of these drinks or are just battling through out of conformity. You’ll be struggling to finish a Bloody Mary or a Bucks Fizz and wondering whether you actually like any of the people sitting in your personal space in this cramped, open-brick-walled-furnace. Seriously, why do people queue for so long to go to the Breakfast Club? Or, if you’re a ‘real’ person you’ll be smugly reading the paper, sipping your macchiato while sampling some sort of hand reared quinoa omelette, and smiling occasionally at your besotted extension. Either way, it’ll be fucking boring.
Bunga Bunga, however, manages to invigorate this normally morose affair. The second reason may have more traction. If you are to believe any popular nightlife or bar review site, from small blogs to industry leading websites, the average Londoner is so jaded with the standard bar or pub experience that they are aching to try anything and everything, so long as it’s different. So, like everyone else, we have settled on something a little more unique and peculiar.
The joy of Bunga Bunga is that it fulfils these needs in such a reckless way: Step in from the searing light of Saturday morning to the dark, thick-pulled-curtain comfort to see long tables prepared with carafes of various flavours of fruit juice: the perfect medicine when mixed with a good dose of Prosecco. All proceeds at a fairly gentle pace until about the 4th or 10th glass when small talk becomes loud talk and chairs mysteriously turn into a disjointed collection of wood and metal (sorry).
Sometime during this period ‘brunch’ is brought out. I say ‘brunch’ in its broadest sense, since pizza with a glass of Prosecco in the early afternoon seems about as far from brunch as Dr Oetker’s pizza is as far from being made by a real authentic Italian doctor. There are eggs on some of them though – so that’s a bonus.
This sense of warped time adds to the growing feeling of excess and extravagance. Once all the food has been consumed, or at least put near a mouth and then on the floor, the real fun begins. Lights dim still further, the cross-dresser appears and the karaoke begins. All else is full of lights, sounds and other indeterminable flurries of sensation.
The only issue is, what do you do once Bunga Bunga shuts its doors and you are flung out into the real world so early on a Saturday? Has your weekend just begun, or is it already over…
O.C
Cool Bars for Uncool People
Sometimes you need to convince someone that rather than being a lager addled man-child with a predilection for kebabs, you’re actually a suave social chameleon with a penchant for the finer things in life. This blog is meant to help you take people to bars and other venues that reflect well on you; secret underground drinking-holes that only people who really know the vibe and pulse of a city could know about. But really you got it off this blog. Good luck!
Thursday 17 April 2014
Friday 4 October 2013
Manero's
After something of a hiatus following our really quite unacceptable behavior in several of these bars that we profess to love so much; we’re back, and we’re going back to our roots by telling you about a weird bar we found when we were drunk that’s located underneath a kebab shop.
Manero’s is a yellow door located on Kingsland Road about halfway between Shoreditch High Street and Dalston Junction – it doesn’t seem to have any distinctive features apart from aforementioned bright yellow door, and entry is via knocking or a buzzer. I discovered it using the skills I picked up during my ill-spent youth in Wales, vis-à-vis; someone saying ‘go on, knock on that door, see what happens’ and the understanding that everyone fucking legs it if anyone angry answers.
Luckily for us, no one angry answered, a very nice bloke who promised to give me a treat if I followed him into his basement did. Always one to think the best of people, as well as one to ignore those videos they make you watch in Primary School, I promptly obliged.
Manero’s calls itself a ‘Private Members Club’, but this doesn’t seem to have any real meaning, all they ask is that you ‘please be nice’. Surprisingly enough, we managed to stick to this rule long enough to not be unceremoniously thrown out or have any threats of calling the appropriate authorities leveled against us.
It's a dimly-lit bar with an eclectic mixture of furniture that mostly looks like it was left to the place by eccentric great aunts; in short then, brilliant. The bar itself is very small, apparently the capacity of the place is only 69 (hee hee hee). I was going to make a very immature joke about that being just the right size and number for an orgy but I’d rather just lazily throw in the fact that I’d already thought of it and let you fill in the punchline. Any laughs you gain from this are of course, as a result of my dazzling wit, not yours, so please be aware of that.
At one end there’s a window through which all the drinks are served, and at the opposite end of the room is a raised stage bit where you can sit to drink them. I liked this, as it made me feel a bit like the central character in some sort of gritty and urbane stage play. Then again, as a self-centred narcissist with what has been described as a ‘feeble’ mind, I always feel like this, and everyone else in my life I see as basically glorified props. Basically, this stage-area bit fed my already inappropriately large ego, and you should go and sit in a big leather-backed chair and imagine you’re in the 50s and married to a woman called Marjorie for a bit too. It’s great.
The drinks were mainly cocktails, and for once, I decided to forgo my usual pathway of obnoxiously asking for ‘lovely lager’ until I’m either given one or told ‘please, this this a garden centre’ and have to leave. The cocktail I was made was called the something-or-other, and I believe my peers had respectively, the whats-its-face and the forgotten-what-its-called. Look, I’d been drinking heavily and I’ll confess I forget what I had, but it was delicious, as was everything I had in there. Manero’s has that rarest of things; a bartender who is actually a bartender and knows his drinks, rather than some dickhead who can catch ice in a fucking cocktail shaker and doesn’t know his Bellini from his Bellend.
Basically, Manero’s is a weird, dark basement underneath a kebab shop in East London that not many people know about, and that’s sort of the whole point of this blog. It looks cool, it has great drinks, and I like it there. Thanks for the great night Manero’s. And thanks for not bumming me in the back like in Pulp Fiction. That's always a plus.
J. Clee
Manero's
232 Kingsland Road,
London
E2 8AX
members@maneros-london.com
facebook.com/APrivateMembersClub
Manero’s is a yellow door located on Kingsland Road about halfway between Shoreditch High Street and Dalston Junction – it doesn’t seem to have any distinctive features apart from aforementioned bright yellow door, and entry is via knocking or a buzzer. I discovered it using the skills I picked up during my ill-spent youth in Wales, vis-à-vis; someone saying ‘go on, knock on that door, see what happens’ and the understanding that everyone fucking legs it if anyone angry answers.
Luckily for us, no one angry answered, a very nice bloke who promised to give me a treat if I followed him into his basement did. Always one to think the best of people, as well as one to ignore those videos they make you watch in Primary School, I promptly obliged.
Manero’s calls itself a ‘Private Members Club’, but this doesn’t seem to have any real meaning, all they ask is that you ‘please be nice’. Surprisingly enough, we managed to stick to this rule long enough to not be unceremoniously thrown out or have any threats of calling the appropriate authorities leveled against us.
It's a dimly-lit bar with an eclectic mixture of furniture that mostly looks like it was left to the place by eccentric great aunts; in short then, brilliant. The bar itself is very small, apparently the capacity of the place is only 69 (hee hee hee). I was going to make a very immature joke about that being just the right size and number for an orgy but I’d rather just lazily throw in the fact that I’d already thought of it and let you fill in the punchline. Any laughs you gain from this are of course, as a result of my dazzling wit, not yours, so please be aware of that.
At one end there’s a window through which all the drinks are served, and at the opposite end of the room is a raised stage bit where you can sit to drink them. I liked this, as it made me feel a bit like the central character in some sort of gritty and urbane stage play. Then again, as a self-centred narcissist with what has been described as a ‘feeble’ mind, I always feel like this, and everyone else in my life I see as basically glorified props. Basically, this stage-area bit fed my already inappropriately large ego, and you should go and sit in a big leather-backed chair and imagine you’re in the 50s and married to a woman called Marjorie for a bit too. It’s great.
The drinks were mainly cocktails, and for once, I decided to forgo my usual pathway of obnoxiously asking for ‘lovely lager’ until I’m either given one or told ‘please, this this a garden centre’ and have to leave. The cocktail I was made was called the something-or-other, and I believe my peers had respectively, the whats-its-face and the forgotten-what-its-called. Look, I’d been drinking heavily and I’ll confess I forget what I had, but it was delicious, as was everything I had in there. Manero’s has that rarest of things; a bartender who is actually a bartender and knows his drinks, rather than some dickhead who can catch ice in a fucking cocktail shaker and doesn’t know his Bellini from his Bellend.
Basically, Manero’s is a weird, dark basement underneath a kebab shop in East London that not many people know about, and that’s sort of the whole point of this blog. It looks cool, it has great drinks, and I like it there. Thanks for the great night Manero’s. And thanks for not bumming me in the back like in Pulp Fiction. That's always a plus.
J. Clee
Manero's
232 Kingsland Road,
London
E2 8AX
members@maneros-london.com
facebook.com/APrivateMembersClub
Friday 14 June 2013
The Filling Station (a.k.a Shrimpy's)
I’ve always hated that all too familiar feeling of being judged for being drunk, chain-smoking my second packet of Malboro Reds and cooking on an open fire in a petrol station. Fortunately for me, being blessed with a near total misunderstanding of the concept of self preservation, I spend my holidays in crippled former Yugoslav republics where such behaviour is far more quotidian.
For the rest of you, who I know have been dying to drink up and light up in a petrol station, The Filling Station (a.k.a. Shrimpy’s) is perfect. Of course, I’m a pretty cool guy so I think that The Filling Station lost a lot of its rough around the edges, ‘you might die here’ charm that us east London types love when it started serving prosecco and seafood instead of diesel oil. Then again, I don’t get a vote because half the stuff I drink may well be unleaded petrol and I wouldn’t know the difference.
To clarify, I really hope that nobody reading this genuinely considers themselves edgy enough to consider their local Texaco garage a good place to party. Health and safety, the criminal justice system, GCSE chemistry and the most basic of human survival instincts dictate that there are probably better places to spend your Friday night. One of those places is Shrimpy’s behind Kings Cross station. On the canal just off York Way, the forecourt of this former petrol station has been turned into a bar and grill which is sunny, spacious, airy and, most importantly, nothing like the Cleveland-dungeonesque basement bars we usually review. This makes it perfect for all of you engaging in our national pastime donning shorts and t-shirts and pretending you’re not cold.
In the interests of thoroughness I should mention that the Filling Station’s refurbishment began with the opening of Shrimpy’s restaurant in the former service station shop. I can’t tell you much about it because, as women often like to remind me, I don’t deserve nice things so the nearest I got to the restaurant was the toilet it shares with the forecourt bar. That was very nice though. I particularly liked the anti-heroin lights.
Now a quick word about the forecourt bar. You may find that it takes a very long time to get served. If this is the case you’ve probably fallen into the trap as most of the other people at this bar fall. You’ve seen the long single file line waiting for the bar, forgotten everything you ever knew about anything, decided that you are in fact an american tourist, assumed that this is how bars work now and joined the back of the queue. Don’t worry you’re not the only one. Fortunately I’m here to remind you that you’ve been in a bar before and this is patently not how they work. Just walk straight to the front and get served almost instantly. That’s what we did but then again most people hate us so swift service could be seen as something of a pyrrhic victory.
Once you’ve made your way to the front of the queue via whichever is your preferred route you’ll get your first glimpse of the food and drink menu. Somebody with more lyrical talent than me once said, ‘variety is the spice of life’. The clever folk at Shrimpy’s have come up with the compelling counterpoint of, ‘no it isn’t shut up’. The food menu is limited to meat or vegetable tortas, corn on the cob or a seafood bucket. Childhood memories of singing ‘there’s a hole in my bucket’ and 4am trips to KFC have given me a vague understanding of what a bucket is but what the seafood is I have no idea. This isn’t Mr Shrimpy’s fault as I never bothered to ask and I had just eaten a pizza so I didn’t order it. I also have no idea what a torta is.
The drinks menu is equally simple: lager; cider; margarita; prosecco from a tap. In a round about way I mean this as a complement because beer that doesn’t say Carling on the side confuses me and the choice of whether I want garlic or chili sauce on my kebab is often too much for my pretty little head to worry about.
You get the point. You’re not going there to drink cocktails out of unicorn horns, discuss the relative merits of Tia Maria over Kahlua and wow your friends with how the extract of whogivesafuck has really brought out the flavour of your cocktail. You’re going there because it’s cool, it’s different and you’re so desperate to show off you’ve resorted to reading this blog. You’ll find a great place to enjoy the sun and look out over the canal with a beer discussing important questions such as: ‘if I’m on a barge am I ipso facto a pirate?’; ‘can river people shrink your head?’; and ‘if that’s a seagull where is the sea?’.
King's Cross Filling Station
Goods Way
London
N1C 4UR
020 8880 6111
www.kxfs.co.uk
King's Cross Filling Station
Goods Way
London
N1C 4UR
020 8880 6111
www.kxfs.co.uk
Wednesday 15 May 2013
The Old Fountain
In a gross overestimation of this blog’s popularity and with a somewhat overoptimistic view of the breadth of our readership, we had something of a crisis of conscience. With the 14 degree heat of the pale English sun blazing down on us like Promethean fire, we realised that most of the bars we send our readers to are in basement warrens which are more Watership Down than Alice in Wonderland. Our poor readers, who definitely use this blog as their only source of London drinking information, were going to have nowhere to sit outside with a Pimms in thick jumpers wishing they didn’t live in bloody England. Fortunately for all(/both) of you, we’re finally reviewing some places suitable for people who don’t suffer from acute Photodermititis. We reckon that these will prove especially useful now that it’s even more damp outside my flat than in (a rarity) and the prospect of more sunshine seems as likely as a primary school teacher saying, "Today, children, we’re going to listen to Lost Prophets before watching Animal Hospital and if you’re well behaved then a local celebrity will fix it for you to have you dreams come true."
- You can leave and go to the Horns strip pub directly underneath it.
- It’s not absolutely packed with trilby sporting half-wits and extras from The Only Way is Essex in white suits checking their watches to make sure they don’t miss the last train back to Romford. They’re all busy showing off their diamante ear studs to other people I never want to meet in the Golden Bee. In fact, the Old Fountain isn’t packed full of anyone. One of its main attractions is that the Londoners flocking to find a beer garden as soon the sun comes out, as if they’d spent the last few months trapped in a Chilean mine, don’t know about it;
- The drinks selection is extraordinary. Yes it’s summer so most of you will order either Corona, Pimms or Bulmers which makes the variety of interesting inebriators on tap somewhat obsolete. Yes, rather than learn anything about food or drink we prefer to compensate for our own mediocrity by making snide, ill-thought remarks about CAMRA meetings. But, from what little sense I can glean from the mire of half-memories of my Sunday there, there was some pretty ok stuff at the bar. (That’s right Timeout, let’s see you come up with criticism as well observed and hard hitting as this);
- You will never, ever see any of us in there. If you’ve met us you’ll understand why that’s a good thing. If you were there that fateful Sunday, you’ll understand why we’re about as welcome there as a hug in a burns unit. In the full knowledge that my mother is reading this and that our half-arsed attempts at anonymity have, like any other good idea we’ve ever had, failed completely, I will spare you most of the details. In short, we found the perfect summer pub. Let’s not ruin it by getting too drunk, we said. Let’s not throw stools around while we pretend to be spiderman like simple-minded overgrown man-children, we said. Let’s not help ourselves to pints from behind the bar, we said. Let’s not make out with each other for no reason, we said. Let’s not...I can’t, I’ve already said too much.
Yeah we can’t go there anymore. You can. You should take advantage of that fact. Don’t make the same mistakes we did. Keep your clothes on. I’m so sorry.
The Old Fountain
3 Baldwin Street
London
EC1V 9NU
020 7253 2970
www.oldfountain.co.uk
Labels:
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Wednesday 1 May 2013
Platform
On their website a quote boasts: ‘Platform Bar and Terrace at Netil House has the intimate atmosphere of drinks round a friend’s living room’. How many people, not including the writers at The Hackney Citizen, can honestly say that their friend’s living room is hidden away in a gutted council block, replete with an array of salvaged and luxuriant furniture. Not only that, but with ‘kooky artwork’ and graffiti on the walls and large windows offering a sepia tinted sunset view over the rooftops of East London towards The City. They do say ‘atmosphere’ rather than ‘replica’ or ‘scaled model’ but I’m not one for semantics so will swiftly move on. Also, I have very few friends, let alone any who would have something resembling a living room, so don’t have many scenarios to compare this to...
The important thing is that Platform is a great place to demonstrate that you still have that detailed knowledge of London’s drinking venues.
It is situated just a short walk from Broadway Market, one of the best (if most expensive) food markets in London during the weekend and a pleasingly independent shopping street during the week, and London Fields where some of this city’s rich and trendy show off their new found wealth from gorgeous terraced houses or shiny new build blocks which seem to laugh in the face of Hackney’s urban poor.
Not only is the location enough to catch anyone’s attention, but the building and setting itself will also be sure to impress your guests. Platform forms a focal point of the creative collective that is Netil House. This includes a warren of studios containing a wealth of different artistic endeavours, regular artistic events and rooftop parties, and Netil Market which takes inspiration from Broadway Market round the corner with a well selected group of in-vogue food carts (they also form part of a group which manages the interesting Hackney Downs Studios and The Russet Cafe).
The entrance lies between Netil House and the arches supporting the North Eastern railway between London Fields and Cambridge Heath. Hold your nerve and purpose as you saunter down the shingled path - you are now practiced in the art of persuading people to follow you into dark alleys.
Two bouncers wait by a door at the end. ‘Platform?’ they ask; half implying that you’re only here for part of the show, half that you are part of an exclusive group who know about such special venues as this. Reply with a confident yes, indicating to your guest that you form an integral part of that group, hiding who you truly are, while also leaving them tantalising evidence of the fact that you know Platform may not be the only thing on offer within and around Netil House.
You will be directed up a few empty flights of concrete stairs. Eventually you will reach the bar itself; you are greeted by this ‘living room’ atmosphere. And it is surprisingly warm despite the fact the most people there are aggressively trendy. We’re not only talking the limb-crushing jeans but styles which with a bit more extravagance and irony wouldn’t fall far short of Dan Ashcroft’s ‘Geek Pie’. At least they’ll provide a talking point when you inevitably run out of conversation and are beginning to lapse into half-overhearing Indigo pontificate about the pros and cons of her new healing crystals.
The smells from the open plan kitchen tempt drinkers toward to delicious looking Persian inspired menu. However due to a mixture of only having 85p left in my account (I spend it on trawling bars so you don’t have to – see how selfless I am) and the fact that I’m a genuine heathen and only wanted lager, I didn’t eat on this occasion.
The drinks are good: well selected but mostly unremarkable. Finally, now you are armed with your poison of choice, comes the coupe de gras. It is supplies the logic for the name, vindicates its place on this site and provides a purpose for the sun.
It would take a writer with more descriptive abilities than myself to explain how they managed to make a bit of open concrete attached to an old council building next to a railway seem attractive, but trust me it works.
Platform Bar and Terrace at Netil House is the place to be, whether that’s relaxing in the calming cafe atmosphere during the day, soaking up the rays on the terrace, or flailing about like an eel (that is how to dance, right?) later on in the evening. Jokes aside, I know I’d certainly get a return ticket.
O.C
Platform Cafe,Bar,Terrace.
2ndFloor,
Netil House,
1-7Westgate Street,
London
E8 3RL
0203 0959713
www.platformlondonfields.com
The important thing is that Platform is a great place to demonstrate that you still have that detailed knowledge of London’s drinking venues.
It is situated just a short walk from Broadway Market, one of the best (if most expensive) food markets in London during the weekend and a pleasingly independent shopping street during the week, and London Fields where some of this city’s rich and trendy show off their new found wealth from gorgeous terraced houses or shiny new build blocks which seem to laugh in the face of Hackney’s urban poor.
Not only is the location enough to catch anyone’s attention, but the building and setting itself will also be sure to impress your guests. Platform forms a focal point of the creative collective that is Netil House. This includes a warren of studios containing a wealth of different artistic endeavours, regular artistic events and rooftop parties, and Netil Market which takes inspiration from Broadway Market round the corner with a well selected group of in-vogue food carts (they also form part of a group which manages the interesting Hackney Downs Studios and The Russet Cafe).
The entrance lies between Netil House and the arches supporting the North Eastern railway between London Fields and Cambridge Heath. Hold your nerve and purpose as you saunter down the shingled path - you are now practiced in the art of persuading people to follow you into dark alleys.
Two bouncers wait by a door at the end. ‘Platform?’ they ask; half implying that you’re only here for part of the show, half that you are part of an exclusive group who know about such special venues as this. Reply with a confident yes, indicating to your guest that you form an integral part of that group, hiding who you truly are, while also leaving them tantalising evidence of the fact that you know Platform may not be the only thing on offer within and around Netil House.
You will be directed up a few empty flights of concrete stairs. Eventually you will reach the bar itself; you are greeted by this ‘living room’ atmosphere. And it is surprisingly warm despite the fact the most people there are aggressively trendy. We’re not only talking the limb-crushing jeans but styles which with a bit more extravagance and irony wouldn’t fall far short of Dan Ashcroft’s ‘Geek Pie’. At least they’ll provide a talking point when you inevitably run out of conversation and are beginning to lapse into half-overhearing Indigo pontificate about the pros and cons of her new healing crystals.
The smells from the open plan kitchen tempt drinkers toward to delicious looking Persian inspired menu. However due to a mixture of only having 85p left in my account (I spend it on trawling bars so you don’t have to – see how selfless I am) and the fact that I’m a genuine heathen and only wanted lager, I didn’t eat on this occasion.
The drinks are good: well selected but mostly unremarkable. Finally, now you are armed with your poison of choice, comes the coupe de gras. It is supplies the logic for the name, vindicates its place on this site and provides a purpose for the sun.
It would take a writer with more descriptive abilities than myself to explain how they managed to make a bit of open concrete attached to an old council building next to a railway seem attractive, but trust me it works.
Platform Bar and Terrace at Netil House is the place to be, whether that’s relaxing in the calming cafe atmosphere during the day, soaking up the rays on the terrace, or flailing about like an eel (that is how to dance, right?) later on in the evening. Jokes aside, I know I’d certainly get a return ticket.
O.C
Platform Cafe,Bar,Terrace.
2ndFloor,
Netil House,
1-7Westgate Street,
London
E8 3RL
0203 0959713
www.platformlondonfields.com
Labels:
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Wednesday 17 April 2013
Wilton's Music Hall
Even the most inattentive reader of this blog will notice that the majority of bars which we have reviewed are either underground or, to some extent, hidden. They have been designed or set up in such a way in order to lure in idiots like us and trick us into thinking that they are cool by validating our need to be that little bit different; to know that little bit more than everybody else.
O.C With thanks to Katie from KBfoodphotos for photos, company, indulging morons like us and generally making this blog a lot less rubbish. You can follow her @kasiakatie.
Wilton's Music Hall
1 Graces Alley
London
E1 8JB
020 7702 2789
www.wiltons.org.uk
Friday 5 April 2013
The Crown and Goose (Obituary)
When we started this blog, we rather grandiosely
decided that we’d keep our favourite bar secret, so that we were the only
uncool people in it. I think this may have well been vastly over-estimating the
popularity of this blog, whose viewership I think is pretty much confined to
‘me’ and my increasingly-disappointed parents. NO MUM I’M STILL NOT A LAWYER
YET.
That said, we recently found out that despite the best
efforts of a dedicated core of great people, our favourite
watering-hole in the whole of London is to be torn down to be converted into
luxury flats and a high-end restaurant. I mean, in a way, I understand, if
there’s one thing London needs it’s more people being priced out of the areas
they grew up in so fucking City Boy yuppies can sit around thinking they’re
Gordon Gekko meets Pete Doherty. No wait, that can fuck right off.
Unfortunate though it may be, we’re generally decent
people (court decision pending) and so we wanted to write about this place to
give you a chance to visit one of London’s last proper boozers before it shuts
its doors forever.
This Shangri-La, this Valhalla, this Oasis amongst over-priced cider with stupid flavours like ‘bubblegum’ that was what your sister
drank that year she went to V Festival and those twats who book all the tables
in the beer gardens from like 4pm in the summer (you know who you are, you
overly-organised wankers), is the Crown and Goose, Camden.
The Crown and Goose has a very special place in the
heart of all the people who write for this blog; it’s a great little place with
loads of character and really nice people, plus, fittingly for this blog, not
as many people know about it as they should. It’s a small pub tucked away near
Mornington Crescent, on a quiet residential street.
When you first walk into the Goose (it always seems to
be called by the latter part of its name, rather than the former) you’re immediately
confronted by the bar: ideal. Get to it then and order some lagers. The Goose
doesn’t have cocktails made out of mermaid scales or that taste like a Sicilian
sunset or whatever other bollocks I’ve half-remembered from cocktail menus when
I’ve bothered to read them. It’s a pub that does a damn good drink, there’s a
good selection of lager and cider on tap and there’s all your other standard
stuff like G & Ts and wine and Jesus I’m even boring myself now. It’s a
pub, you know what you drink in pubs, if you don’t I think you’re trying to run
before you can walk on this one to be honest.
The interior of the Goose looks like it was once an
old shop or house, and I’m reliably informed that once it was indeed just a
humble beer-shop. It is, however, very very cramped. I’m talking tube-level
cramped. It can get extremely busy, and I mean that type of busy where you have
to hold your pint at a weird angle so you look like a trainee contortionist,
and apparently if you’re short it can get very claustrophobic. Not that I give
one about that; suck on that short people.
However, and this is one of the great things about the
Goose, despite how busy and angular and weird it gets in there, it never ever
gets aggressive. In quite a lot of the pubs and bars in Camden you’re likely to
leave with quite a lot of glass lodged in your oesophagus if you politely ask
someone to ‘excuse you’ while you’re heading for the toilets. Now this may
sound like faint praise; ‘yeah, the Goose is great, I’ve never taken an
absolute pasting there even once’, but it really does make a difference, plus
for someone who acts like a total twat quite a lot of the time, the assurance
that my night isn’t going to end with me picking my teeth out of the gutter
with a broken arm is a big lure.
The Goose is a genuinely friendly place, even the
staff there are brilliant, they’re all good at what they do, are happy to have
a chat, and don't mind when you get so drunk you spill candle wax all over the
fucking place like some sort of confused bee.
Although I hardly feel qualified to review the food,
as I'm the kind of man who thinks a restaurant is fancy if the chairs aren't
bolted to the floor, I think I should mention that the food there is absolutely
delicious. Every single time I've eaten there it's been incredible.
Finally then, this review is a farewell to the Goose,
an obituary if you will. It will be sorely missed by all of us, and by many,
many others. I urge you to check it out before Barclays Bank swing a
wrecking-ball through it build another stainless-steel and glass cathedral to
the worst excesses of capitalism.
Go and have a pint in the sun outside and try some of the food before it comes down: you’ll never find a pub quite like it.
Go and have a pint in the sun outside and try some of the food before it comes down: you’ll never find a pub quite like it.
Goodbye Goose. We love you, and you'll live on in our
memories. This can be your swan-song. Or goose-song. Do geese sing? I don’t
know what I’m talking about now.
J. Clee
The Crown and Goose
100 Arlington Road,
Camden,
London
NW1 7HP
020 7285 8008
www.thecrownandgoose.co.uk
J. Clee
The Crown and Goose
100 Arlington Road,
Camden,
London
NW1 7HP
020 7285 8008
www.thecrownandgoose.co.uk
Labels:
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Wednesday 20 March 2013
Underdog
‘Speakeasy’ is a word used to describe London bars more often than the words ‘idiot’, ‘prick’, and ‘get out of my house’ are used to describe me. I won’t do Underdog the disservice of lumping them in with all the highly pedestrian suit-havens of the capital by describing it as such. It deserves better than that. Unfortunately, I’m borderline illiterate and can’t think of another way to say it’s a slightly-hidden bar under another bar.
Look, basically it’s the cocktail bar under Brewdog’s new pub in Shoreditch.
There appears to be no door policy at all when you go to the ominously cordoned-off and guarded stairs in the middle of the main bar and ask if you can visit the Underdog. I mean, they let us idiots in: genuine class-A morons who spent five minutes milling about in a corridor because we couldn’t find the door.
Once you’ve mastered getting through the actually-pretty-bloody-obvious door, stop and take in your surroundings. As you look around, much like when I look back at my behaviour over the weekend, it’s best not to ask ‘why?’. You’ll just upset yourself: 'Why are there so many dead animals? Why is there a voodoo corner? Why is there a box of hair?' At this point I wish we had some photos on this blog because I realise I’ve just made one of my favourite bars sound like the set of a Stanley Kubrick remake of the Human Centipede. It’s not. I promise it’s nice. I went there with actual women. They didn’t hate it.
I think that the disjointed lunacy of the decor can probably be attributed to the ‘I don’t give a fuck what society thinks’ attitude which permeates the entire Brewdog venture. That’s what takes it from creepy to really fucking cool; a feat I’ve never accomplished myself. Brewdog is ‘Beer for Punks’ brewed by two guys who decided to sacrifice every penny of credit available to them on the altar of ‘let’s make beer that we like more than other beer’. Brewdog is the sort of bold venture that people like me write about because we’ll never be cool enough to do something that awesome ourselves. If this is the first you’ve heard of them I strongly suggest that you Google the following:
‘Tactical Nuclear Penguin’
‘Brewdog/Speedball/Nanny State’
and
‘how do I get out of this box I’ve been living in for the last five years?’
Obviously I love the whole punk thing because I was once at the beating heart of the modern punk movement. That is to say I went to Rancid gig. It was raining so I wore a sensible waterproof coat and I left quite early because I lost the phone which I had recently acquired on a generous but affordable tariff which made me sad. This gave me some time to reflect on the tattoos I don’t have. Yeah I’m not a punk. Most punks are smelly and scary and fortunately this bar is neither. It just wants to be your friend.
I realise that I’ve been building this place up a lot so I’d like to take a moment to reassure you. These guys have not ‘done a Proud’ and fallen off the cool cliff into the pretentious-and-wanky pit. You won’t feel out of place because you don’t own a pair of jeans so tight that getting a semi fills you with an all-consuming dread. As I said, this bar wants to be your friend. It also, much like my beloved Camden Town Brewery, wants you to be able to drink some really delicious beer. Their beer is so delicious, in fact, that we broke House Rule #72 ('Only drink lager if it’s warm and flat and has preferably been open for a few days') and ordered a case of it.
Here’s the really good thing about Underdog. While I am perfectly happy to drink myself into oblivion on lager and IPA alone, I understand that many of you like to drink these new-fangled fancy cocktail things. This presents a problem because the cocktail tends to be to beer what responsibility and consequences are to me: an absolute fucking nemesis. Finding a good cocktail in the same establishment as a good beer is about as likely as finding Salman Rushdie sunning himself on the beaches of the Persian Gulf.
In classic Brewdog ‘fuck this noise, I’m going to sort this shit out’ fashion, Underdog has produced a range of cocktails based on beer and cider. With beer reductions and other fancy chemistry which is an absolute mystery to me going on I started to get scared and calmed myself down with another three pints of the Dead Pony Club Pale Ale. My friends that did try the cocktails were full of praise though. At least I think they were, by this stage I was hearing colours.
Brewdog themselves say the following about their bars:
‘We are not cool. We are not pretentious. We just care. And we are your friends.’
Well, Mr B. Dog, I’ll be the judge of whether or not you’re cool. I don’t know if you heard but I’m a pretty cool guy. I don’t avoid buying skinny jeans because they’re a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t just come back from a holiday in Center Parcs. I never apologised to a police dog because I couldn’t be its friend. None of those things.
Ok, I’m not even remotely cool. Underdog is. Go there.
BrewDog Shoreditch
51-55 Bethnal Green Road,
London,
E1 6LA
0207 729 8476
www.brewdog.com
Look, basically it’s the cocktail bar under Brewdog’s new pub in Shoreditch.
There appears to be no door policy at all when you go to the ominously cordoned-off and guarded stairs in the middle of the main bar and ask if you can visit the Underdog. I mean, they let us idiots in: genuine class-A morons who spent five minutes milling about in a corridor because we couldn’t find the door.
Once you’ve mastered getting through the actually-pretty-bloody-obvious door, stop and take in your surroundings. As you look around, much like when I look back at my behaviour over the weekend, it’s best not to ask ‘why?’. You’ll just upset yourself: 'Why are there so many dead animals? Why is there a voodoo corner? Why is there a box of hair?' At this point I wish we had some photos on this blog because I realise I’ve just made one of my favourite bars sound like the set of a Stanley Kubrick remake of the Human Centipede. It’s not. I promise it’s nice. I went there with actual women. They didn’t hate it.
I think that the disjointed lunacy of the decor can probably be attributed to the ‘I don’t give a fuck what society thinks’ attitude which permeates the entire Brewdog venture. That’s what takes it from creepy to really fucking cool; a feat I’ve never accomplished myself. Brewdog is ‘Beer for Punks’ brewed by two guys who decided to sacrifice every penny of credit available to them on the altar of ‘let’s make beer that we like more than other beer’. Brewdog is the sort of bold venture that people like me write about because we’ll never be cool enough to do something that awesome ourselves. If this is the first you’ve heard of them I strongly suggest that you Google the following:
‘Tactical Nuclear Penguin’
‘Brewdog/Speedball/Nanny State’
and
‘how do I get out of this box I’ve been living in for the last five years?’
Obviously I love the whole punk thing because I was once at the beating heart of the modern punk movement. That is to say I went to Rancid gig. It was raining so I wore a sensible waterproof coat and I left quite early because I lost the phone which I had recently acquired on a generous but affordable tariff which made me sad. This gave me some time to reflect on the tattoos I don’t have. Yeah I’m not a punk. Most punks are smelly and scary and fortunately this bar is neither. It just wants to be your friend.
I realise that I’ve been building this place up a lot so I’d like to take a moment to reassure you. These guys have not ‘done a Proud’ and fallen off the cool cliff into the pretentious-and-wanky pit. You won’t feel out of place because you don’t own a pair of jeans so tight that getting a semi fills you with an all-consuming dread. As I said, this bar wants to be your friend. It also, much like my beloved Camden Town Brewery, wants you to be able to drink some really delicious beer. Their beer is so delicious, in fact, that we broke House Rule #72 ('Only drink lager if it’s warm and flat and has preferably been open for a few days') and ordered a case of it.
Here’s the really good thing about Underdog. While I am perfectly happy to drink myself into oblivion on lager and IPA alone, I understand that many of you like to drink these new-fangled fancy cocktail things. This presents a problem because the cocktail tends to be to beer what responsibility and consequences are to me: an absolute fucking nemesis. Finding a good cocktail in the same establishment as a good beer is about as likely as finding Salman Rushdie sunning himself on the beaches of the Persian Gulf.
In classic Brewdog ‘fuck this noise, I’m going to sort this shit out’ fashion, Underdog has produced a range of cocktails based on beer and cider. With beer reductions and other fancy chemistry which is an absolute mystery to me going on I started to get scared and calmed myself down with another three pints of the Dead Pony Club Pale Ale. My friends that did try the cocktails were full of praise though. At least I think they were, by this stage I was hearing colours.
Brewdog themselves say the following about their bars:
‘We are not cool. We are not pretentious. We just care. And we are your friends.’
Well, Mr B. Dog, I’ll be the judge of whether or not you’re cool. I don’t know if you heard but I’m a pretty cool guy. I don’t avoid buying skinny jeans because they’re a bit uncomfortable. I didn’t just come back from a holiday in Center Parcs. I never apologised to a police dog because I couldn’t be its friend. None of those things.
Ok, I’m not even remotely cool. Underdog is. Go there.
BrewDog Shoreditch
51-55 Bethnal Green Road,
London,
E1 6LA
0207 729 8476
www.brewdog.com
Labels:
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Beer,
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Drinking,
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Unusual
Wednesday 6 March 2013
Garlic & Shots
Some of you who have read this blog a few times before may have realised that the guys who write it have been slaughtered in cellars more times than the entire cast of the Saw films, and like the films; we’re showing no signs of stopping. Garlic & Shots is the perfect setting for even more of the same then, as this particular basement is dark, cramped and playing heavy metal: brilliant.
Now, you may be thinking that this is something of a departure from the hidden and often classy cocktail bars we tend to discuss. This is true, but I’m the kind of man who’s more at home in those pubs you find on industrial estates than those kinds of places so I felt more comfortable here. Plus, Garlic & Shots is actually pretty cool, in the same way there was that one guy in school who was cool even though everyone was a bit afraid of him and you’d heard a pretty unsavoury rumour about him involving a kestrel.
As you may have guessed, Garlic and Shots is a bar that has a pretty obvious unique selling point, but just in case you’ve been drinking or you’re only glancing over this shoddily-written rubbish then I’ll spell it out. The garlic part of Garlic & Shots refers to the fact that all the food on the menu has garlic in. And I mean all; the website says ‘you can order more garlic, but never less’ so be prepared for that if you’re going there for dinner.
However, this blog isn’t ‘places to go for dinner if you’re fucking terrified of vampires’, so we’ll move swiftly on to the ‘Shots’ element: Garlic & Shots has a menu of 101 shots, ranging from the fairly standard to the arguably criminal. Oh don’t worry though; quite a lot of the shots have garlic in them too. Say what you like about G&S, but they do exactly what it says on the tin.
The front of the place is something of a drab affair, which only makes me like it more. When you’re wandering around Soho it’s nice to see a change from the endless parade of Pret a Mangers and cocktail bars with names like ‘Paradise’ and ‘Jewel’ that inexplicably are still in business despite the fact you never ever see anyone in them. A squat, grey little building sandwiched between two townhouses, there’s very little to say that Garlic & Shots is actually a bar, rather than say, a really pretentiously-named boutique or a greengrocer’s that’s decided to branch out into the firing-range game.
When you go inside the ground floor is closer to a restaurant than a bar, but head through to the back and down the stairs into the basement. What you’re confronted with is the kind of thing I love: a dingy basement with a couple of tables in it and an extremely suspect drink menu.
It’s not glamorous, and it’s not really very pretty, but it definitely all works. The metal that’s playing in the background only serves to add to the atmosphere and it’s absolutely perfect for getting fired up for the kind of night that ends up with you committing all Seven of the Deadly Sins, and possibly creating some brand new ones.
When we turned up we had the Bloodshot, which was some sort of concoction involving tomato juice, chili and, quite obviously, garlic. Then we had some other delicious treat that may or may not have been the garlic honey vodka. Then some other things happened, which my recollection of is hazy at best, and then I woke up in a badger’s den in Victoria Park with someone else’s shirt on.
Garlic & Shots is the place to take people for some shots about halfway through a night. It’s really fun, and everyone likes the whole garlic thing, plus if you’re sensible about it, you could probably choose some of the shots that are actually ok. Ideally though, you need to hit it at that point when you’re so drunk that a shot called ‘Racing Oil’ sounds like a great idea.
Finally, I'd like to sum up with the mantra of Garlic & Shots themselves, which speaks to me a lot: 'If it isn't fatal, it toughens your body'. Perfect. Although that does sort of lead me to believe that the guys who work there have never woken up a furious badger at 4:30am.
J. Clee
14 Frith Street,
Soho,
London
W1D 4RD
020 7734 9505
www.garlicandshots.com
Now, you may be thinking that this is something of a departure from the hidden and often classy cocktail bars we tend to discuss. This is true, but I’m the kind of man who’s more at home in those pubs you find on industrial estates than those kinds of places so I felt more comfortable here. Plus, Garlic & Shots is actually pretty cool, in the same way there was that one guy in school who was cool even though everyone was a bit afraid of him and you’d heard a pretty unsavoury rumour about him involving a kestrel.
As you may have guessed, Garlic and Shots is a bar that has a pretty obvious unique selling point, but just in case you’ve been drinking or you’re only glancing over this shoddily-written rubbish then I’ll spell it out. The garlic part of Garlic & Shots refers to the fact that all the food on the menu has garlic in. And I mean all; the website says ‘you can order more garlic, but never less’ so be prepared for that if you’re going there for dinner.
However, this blog isn’t ‘places to go for dinner if you’re fucking terrified of vampires’, so we’ll move swiftly on to the ‘Shots’ element: Garlic & Shots has a menu of 101 shots, ranging from the fairly standard to the arguably criminal. Oh don’t worry though; quite a lot of the shots have garlic in them too. Say what you like about G&S, but they do exactly what it says on the tin.
The front of the place is something of a drab affair, which only makes me like it more. When you’re wandering around Soho it’s nice to see a change from the endless parade of Pret a Mangers and cocktail bars with names like ‘Paradise’ and ‘Jewel’ that inexplicably are still in business despite the fact you never ever see anyone in them. A squat, grey little building sandwiched between two townhouses, there’s very little to say that Garlic & Shots is actually a bar, rather than say, a really pretentiously-named boutique or a greengrocer’s that’s decided to branch out into the firing-range game.
When you go inside the ground floor is closer to a restaurant than a bar, but head through to the back and down the stairs into the basement. What you’re confronted with is the kind of thing I love: a dingy basement with a couple of tables in it and an extremely suspect drink menu.
It’s not glamorous, and it’s not really very pretty, but it definitely all works. The metal that’s playing in the background only serves to add to the atmosphere and it’s absolutely perfect for getting fired up for the kind of night that ends up with you committing all Seven of the Deadly Sins, and possibly creating some brand new ones.
When we turned up we had the Bloodshot, which was some sort of concoction involving tomato juice, chili and, quite obviously, garlic. Then we had some other delicious treat that may or may not have been the garlic honey vodka. Then some other things happened, which my recollection of is hazy at best, and then I woke up in a badger’s den in Victoria Park with someone else’s shirt on.
Garlic & Shots is the place to take people for some shots about halfway through a night. It’s really fun, and everyone likes the whole garlic thing, plus if you’re sensible about it, you could probably choose some of the shots that are actually ok. Ideally though, you need to hit it at that point when you’re so drunk that a shot called ‘Racing Oil’ sounds like a great idea.
Finally, I'd like to sum up with the mantra of Garlic & Shots themselves, which speaks to me a lot: 'If it isn't fatal, it toughens your body'. Perfect. Although that does sort of lead me to believe that the guys who work there have never woken up a furious badger at 4:30am.
J. Clee
14 Frith Street,
Soho,
London
W1D 4RD
020 7734 9505
www.garlicandshots.com
Wednesday 20 February 2013
Passing Clouds
Passing Clouds is, more than anything (and more than can be said of their Dalston Cola), refreshing. I can’t think of a venue like it – and if you can then a) You’re a better person than me b) Could you show me where it is, please? And c) You should be writing this, not me.
Passing Cloud’s greatest strength is its variety – though at a base level most nights there do tend to involve too much drink and relentless hours of dancing at and around other people (don’t all?). As a man who thinks most clubs are mainly a louder and more annoying form of places where you jostle about next to other people you don’t know – like lifts, or Bank station at rush hour – this would not normally appeal. Passing Clouds, however, seems to be imbued with the spirit of misrule, which somehow makes this all you want to spend your time doing there. If this is not the effect it has on you, then reassess your life-choices – or for god’s sake have a detox and reinvigorate your relationship with serotonin.
I still think that Nirvana are cutting edge and am just as likely to kill any mood by playing Burial as by blaring out Slayer so I am in no way qualified to judge any venue’s selection of music, whether positively or negatively. However, there is something in the atmosphere here that means whatever is chosen is somehow, at that exact moment, the only thing that could possibly make you want to writhe, gyrate and jump around more intensely and for longer than before. A combination of this and the structure, not to mention the decorations, which could have been put together by someone blasted forward in time from the 60s in full flow, conspires to give Passing Clouds a sense of near free-fall fun.
Passing Clouds manages to cause such chaos, that if anarchy was transformed into an evening on the town, it would be here. Recollecting the next day (or a few days later, if it was a particularly big one or you woke up in Bracknell and had to make a confusing journey home), no one story of the night seems the same, and each small group seems to have just missed out on the most obscene aspect of the other’s evening.
It is situated just behind The Haggerston - an excellent choice for a few drinks before venturing into Passing Clouds - off an increasingly less bleak stretch of Kingsland Road. Once you’ve decided to enter into this vortex of a club, you can exclaim - ‘Look the entrance to this club is near where some bins are’, and all of a sudden the entourage you have collected from visiting the other bars on this blog will, almost now jaded, once again bow down to your superior judgement. The best way to demonstrate its combination of variety and chaos at this point is by discussing a recent visit.
Since the ground floor was yet to be opened, we climbed up the stairs to the second. This is at times a pleasant escape from the mayhem downstairs – though I have recently seen someone pirouette through a table. On this occasion, despite being calm it was unnervingly so, and we soon discovered the reason why. We appeared to have stumbled into a rerun of the bleakest entrants to Britain’s Got Talent; witnessing a surreal and disturbing puppet show re-enactment/parody of certain Shakespeare plays. It was the perfect tone to begin an absurd evening.
Aside from the obligatory intense motion, and the occasional burst of reality brought on by a cigarette break, the night soon blended into a stream of mostly unconnected images. One clear thought was however, having seen them casually reclining at the bar, that someone had just decided to bring their albino python on a night out. Apparently this was Missy Fatale and her companion in a burlesque act, which I sadly missed.* I cannot escape from the fact that, having seen this creature, I was genuinely concerned that I would wake up adrift somewhere with my name and other useless details tattoed to the snake – fortunately that was not the case, unless I’m still dreaming.
Despite the clear attraction of this, Passing Clouds is not solely about such nights: is a multi-purpose venue and community project. There have been salsa classes, spoken word events and many more, on a busy and diverse schedule, while on Sundays they hold a regular community kitchen. While these are interesting aspects of the venue and all add to its allure, this is a blog about cool bars to show off with, and not a blog about where to take your difficult vegan friend, so you can understand why I haven’t focussed on them. Now, back to the getting drunk bit...
It can be difficult to get in due to the queues, and it is a bit steeply priced as nights out go. There is also the issue that not everybody will get along with its hippie leanings and laissez-faire attitude. I have also never been to a place where such a high percentage of people never stop smiling, which at the same time as being endearing can also be slightly draining for someone who loves to hate as much as myself.
However, I know that I would rather go here and jostle about with freaks that I can put up with, and join in with, than go to Movida, Mahiki, or another generic trash-heap and pay £5 for some water to be near people I hate, listening to the same music as the last time I went there by mistake.
I’d say I want go to Passing Clouds every weekend, but I know that if I did I would eventually explode.
*Dear Missy Fatale, I’m so sorry if I tried to touch the snake’s head more than once, despite being told not to. I know it was foolish, but he was so creamy and alluring.
O.C
Passing Clouds 1 Richmond Road
London
E8 4AA
020 7241 4889
www.passingclouds.org
Passing Cloud’s greatest strength is its variety – though at a base level most nights there do tend to involve too much drink and relentless hours of dancing at and around other people (don’t all?). As a man who thinks most clubs are mainly a louder and more annoying form of places where you jostle about next to other people you don’t know – like lifts, or Bank station at rush hour – this would not normally appeal. Passing Clouds, however, seems to be imbued with the spirit of misrule, which somehow makes this all you want to spend your time doing there. If this is not the effect it has on you, then reassess your life-choices – or for god’s sake have a detox and reinvigorate your relationship with serotonin.
I still think that Nirvana are cutting edge and am just as likely to kill any mood by playing Burial as by blaring out Slayer so I am in no way qualified to judge any venue’s selection of music, whether positively or negatively. However, there is something in the atmosphere here that means whatever is chosen is somehow, at that exact moment, the only thing that could possibly make you want to writhe, gyrate and jump around more intensely and for longer than before. A combination of this and the structure, not to mention the decorations, which could have been put together by someone blasted forward in time from the 60s in full flow, conspires to give Passing Clouds a sense of near free-fall fun.
Passing Clouds manages to cause such chaos, that if anarchy was transformed into an evening on the town, it would be here. Recollecting the next day (or a few days later, if it was a particularly big one or you woke up in Bracknell and had to make a confusing journey home), no one story of the night seems the same, and each small group seems to have just missed out on the most obscene aspect of the other’s evening.
It is situated just behind The Haggerston - an excellent choice for a few drinks before venturing into Passing Clouds - off an increasingly less bleak stretch of Kingsland Road. Once you’ve decided to enter into this vortex of a club, you can exclaim - ‘Look the entrance to this club is near where some bins are’, and all of a sudden the entourage you have collected from visiting the other bars on this blog will, almost now jaded, once again bow down to your superior judgement. The best way to demonstrate its combination of variety and chaos at this point is by discussing a recent visit.
Since the ground floor was yet to be opened, we climbed up the stairs to the second. This is at times a pleasant escape from the mayhem downstairs – though I have recently seen someone pirouette through a table. On this occasion, despite being calm it was unnervingly so, and we soon discovered the reason why. We appeared to have stumbled into a rerun of the bleakest entrants to Britain’s Got Talent; witnessing a surreal and disturbing puppet show re-enactment/parody of certain Shakespeare plays. It was the perfect tone to begin an absurd evening.
Aside from the obligatory intense motion, and the occasional burst of reality brought on by a cigarette break, the night soon blended into a stream of mostly unconnected images. One clear thought was however, having seen them casually reclining at the bar, that someone had just decided to bring their albino python on a night out. Apparently this was Missy Fatale and her companion in a burlesque act, which I sadly missed.* I cannot escape from the fact that, having seen this creature, I was genuinely concerned that I would wake up adrift somewhere with my name and other useless details tattoed to the snake – fortunately that was not the case, unless I’m still dreaming.
Despite the clear attraction of this, Passing Clouds is not solely about such nights: is a multi-purpose venue and community project. There have been salsa classes, spoken word events and many more, on a busy and diverse schedule, while on Sundays they hold a regular community kitchen. While these are interesting aspects of the venue and all add to its allure, this is a blog about cool bars to show off with, and not a blog about where to take your difficult vegan friend, so you can understand why I haven’t focussed on them. Now, back to the getting drunk bit...
It can be difficult to get in due to the queues, and it is a bit steeply priced as nights out go. There is also the issue that not everybody will get along with its hippie leanings and laissez-faire attitude. I have also never been to a place where such a high percentage of people never stop smiling, which at the same time as being endearing can also be slightly draining for someone who loves to hate as much as myself.
However, I know that I would rather go here and jostle about with freaks that I can put up with, and join in with, than go to Movida, Mahiki, or another generic trash-heap and pay £5 for some water to be near people I hate, listening to the same music as the last time I went there by mistake.
I’d say I want go to Passing Clouds every weekend, but I know that if I did I would eventually explode.
*Dear Missy Fatale, I’m so sorry if I tried to touch the snake’s head more than once, despite being told not to. I know it was foolish, but he was so creamy and alluring.
O.C
Passing Clouds 1 Richmond Road
London
E8 4AA
020 7241 4889
www.passingclouds.org
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