posted
Inspired by the Chinawhite exchange on the other thread...
Every time I go out in London with hep forumites they always end up taking me to some absolute utter fucking dive. (Think the last time was to some vaguely Hispanic-themed amyl nitrate joint called El Rectumo)
Consequently I've formed the opinion that this 'mega-hot London club scene' is actually a myth. See also: London's mega-hot world cuisine scene.
Is anyone willing/able to convince me otherwise?
Describe your mega-awesome night out in London: two options - Budget and Club Class, please.Posts: 8657
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Obviously it would be easy to string together a fantasy out based on snorting coke off of Kylie Minogue's tit whilst partying at her sister's gaff down next to the river but based on actual real events I'd probably start off at that Connor Mc thingy's pub in Marylebone (can never remember the names of these places) at about mid-day, then gradually pub crawl up to Highgate , hitting the Garage at about 7.00 for awesome redneck rock band Clutch , leave at 10.30, verging on hysterically drunk, stumble into whatever indie rock night is happening at the Electric Ballroom, start hammering shots, and get kicked out crying at about 5am for molesting a GCSE candidate in a rubber dress.
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Shoreditch all the way: drinks at civilised Prague Bar, food at the Real Greek or Bistrotheque, gig at scuzzy Old Blue Last, expensive cocktail at Loungelover, and if you still have energy dancing to 80sNeuRaveElectro at Bar Music Hall.
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a meal at this italian near me where they do this tasty clam / squid ink pasta think, followed by a nice pint, game of pool, and go on the quiz machine down at The Gunners.
[ 05.09.2006, 11:31: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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El Rectumo was the only viable late night option in the pre-24 hour binge-drinking carnage I think.
There are countless quiet, friendly old man type pubs all over London. And to diss the restaurants of London is laughable, and a bit embarrassing to be honest. Within 5 minutes walk of our flat you can have genuine Lebanese food, are spoilt between 3 really good Thai restaurants or can just stick with the excellent take out at good old Broadway Tandoori. We haven't even tried the Jap or Chinese places yet. If you walk for 10 minutes there's even more choice.
I'm not really sure what you rate as a good night out, ben. I like cheap jugs of cocktails and cheesy music if I've got my gladrags on. Otherwise, I like a pub with settees, grimy old prints on the walls, a muttering drunk regular at the bar and a jukebox.
The TMO meats are usually handicapped by the handicapped moaning about location/beer range or something or other. Tell us what you want from a night out in London and we'll see what we can do.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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Whilst there are a lot of shit places in London, they can't really compete with the shit nightclubs you get in small regional towns. They're usually called things like "Shooters", "Tracks", or some thinly veiled sexual reference, and have lots of brass fittings and sticky carpets. Whilst the drinks may be cheaper than many of London's trendier nightspots, you're more likely to lose your teeth in an argument in the taxi rank when both the town's nightspots empty at 2am. As you recover in A&E you still have "I Want To Make You Sweat (A La La La La Long)" on a constant loop in your skull.
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Dedalus speaks strong truth. One of my worst ever nights out was in a club in Plymouth, where there was a wet Y-front competition going on. I couldn't escape, as my feet were stuck to the floor.
VP is also correct. Discussions about meatspaces are always directed by some drunkard insisting on only going somewhere that sells Stella Permafrost, or some such, rather than provision of settees and grab rails by the toilets, which would be my criteria.
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Dedalus is bang on the money re provincial nightclubs.
It is always a horrifying moment when you revisit a bar that you tried so hard to get served in when you were 17 (unless you've never left your home town, I suppose, in which case you never know any better). Thorn and I went drinking on Poole Quay last Boxing Day with a couple of 6th form friends. Suffice to say that the Weatherspoons was the least horrendous option- a pretty devestating indictment of the available watering holes.
-------------------- What I object to is the colour of some of these wheelie bins and where they are left, in some areas outside all week in the front garden. Posts: 4941
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I don't want to thread hijack, but I think this idea could run alongside Ben's:
Which fictional bar/club/disco/pub/village fete/etc. would you most like to go to? No, let me rephrase that: which one do you think you would enjoy yourself most at? Which one represents your "ideal hang-out"?
Mine would probably be, somewhat predictably, Rick's Café Americain, for the fantastically dressed people and all the great seating areas to choose from - near the piano, at the bar, on the main floor area, in a snug, behind a screen, at the casino, etc. You'd drink small, strong cocktails and probably end up snogging Yvonne the slag behind a palm tree.
Other possibles will come to me, maybe, later. Actually have we done this idea before? Hmm.
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quote:Originally posted by mart: Which fictional bar/club/disco/pub/village fete/etc. would you most like to go to?
I'll tell you which one I'd avoid, and that's Tech-Noir. Horrible clattering music, can't seem to decide whether it's a restuarant or a night club, populated by big eighties hair, overpriced entry fees, aggressive bouncers and with only the possibility of breaking the tedium being a cyborg assassin from the future gunning everybody down with an uzi in a fitting end to an already dismal night.
posted
I've also been to the sort of shitholes reserved for small towns. The choice of kings was a club called Pasha's. A bleak outing it was. Downstairs were hosting non-stop wanky housey musicy shit. Buffty buffty buffty buffty, and upstairs was karaoke. Everything looked like the set of scarface. No exaggeration, because the set of scarface would probably be chipped, cobwebbed covered chipboard now and that's exactly what it was like. It must have been a brilliant night because I found my mate Ronan, pisshead extra-ordinairy in the toilet the next day, his arse exposed and shit all over the back of his trousers. Darryl, everyones favourite Thalidomide Kid got so drunk and jealous of anyone paying attention to the only girl there, Zoe, that he attacked a random man with his stump. I'll never forget the poor guys face as he tried to pacify a handicapped while Ronan belted out a cranky Irish accented 'Shot through the heart' Man that was a horrendus night, but I'd love to go back and watch it all again.
[ 05.09.2006, 12:02: Message edited by: New Way Of Decay ]
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Go here on a friday or saturday evening and a fragile alcoholic thespish pianist will rattle his way through a songbook of classics while you bellow your lungs inside out (i.e. sing). It is teh fun.
P.S. A small group of American tourists complained about my singing (apparently) and the regulars (God luv 'em) hounded them out of the pub. They sell beer, too.
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a great question mart. I quite liked the cool facelessness of the bar in Lost in Translation. The gentle murmur of polite conversation, the club singer, the view of tokyo at night, the folded cotton serviettes, the low lighting, carpet, cold marble bar, incredible whiskey, smart suits, neat hair, polite, beautiful staff, a private and civilized place where you can get fucking blitzed every night in relative privacy, whilst not actually being the only one in the room. I like hotel bars in general. No loud music, quite gentle and comforting atmosphere. Once you've been there a few nights on the trot, it feels like you're a regular already, an island, something real in world of perpetual transition and unfamiliarity.
If not, then the club in Blue Velvet looked nice and intimate, dark with some weirdness on the fringes. The constant presence of sex and violence would be as intoxicating as the absinthe. Once again, a private place, that would tolerate anything as long as you kept to yourself.
[ 05.09.2006, 12:10: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
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Some good-sounding suggestions! Keep them coming. My opening gambit wasn't meant (just) as a London diss - it was born of genuine exasperation with the substandard joints I seem to get dragged to when in the Capital (especially by work colleagues).
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: And to diss the restaurants of London is laughable, and a bit embarrassing to be honest.
Look, I'm sure that's the case - but somewhere between me asking work colleagues/friends "So where do you recommend we eat tonight?" and this glittering cornucopia of world-class nosh there's a subtle and horrible disconnect that seems to result in us ending up in Pizza fucking Express. I need names of places, ideally. It's all very well you having half a dozen Lebanese down the way from you - not good for me if I happen to choose the one among them that serves up botulism and toxic waste.
quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: The TMO meats are usually handicapped by the handicapped moaning about location/beer range or something or other. Tell us what you want from a night out in London and we'll see what we can do.
This is the truth - and there's usually also a problem about which places can accommodate a large number of itinerant yahoos. So: fair enough. I don't know - I guess I'd just fancy a night that oscillated between grimy pube-pub and flashy West End coke bar, eventually collapsing into a indie-music playing nightclub of some kind. Thorn's night is 'winning' so far, though in truth I'd ride Vikram's tail anytime.
quote:Originally posted by ben: there's a subtle and horrible disconnect that seems to result in us ending up in Pizza fucking Express.
Last time we met for dinner you insisted we go to Pizza Express. In fact, pretty much every time we've been for dinner (i.e. both times) we have ended up there. Coincidence?
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Oh Bandy - that was when Pizza Express was still exciting to a yokel like me. Now it's become yuppy-parent-creche-highchair-city I feel the need to expand my horizons.
quote:Originally posted by ben: I need names of places, ideally.
Head over to Clerkenwell. Try St John, or Smiths, or any of the Gascon places, there's the chophouse or $ on Exmouth Market. Exmouth Market has loads of decent restaurants. Then afterwards you can go to the faded woodchip splendour of the Shakespeare's Head, behind Sadler's Wells. If you get in well before closing you might get a lock-in.
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Ben - give us a geographical limit. Many a night out in London has been ruined by being dragged from a 'dear' little bar in Highbury to this 'wicked' Mongolian tapas bar in Acton to a 'bangin' club in Deptford. In pretty much any area (except perhaps Harlesden) I'm sure a TMO-ite could perscribe a nite out to tickle your fancy.
ETA: just as BM has above. Many more delights to be found in Clerkenwell.
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I had the best quail ever at St John. Alternatively check out the monk soup at gastropub pioneer The Eagle (next door to The Guardian) and then a pleasant half hour stroll up West to enjoy the live bands, great DJs and faux-50s splendour of the Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes.
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I could take you on a pub crawl of fine ale houses from the City of London, via Borough and Shad Thames towards Rotherhithe. And then down t Tooting for a curry. Maybe a couple of beers in the local pub and you can kip on my sofa afterwards.
posted
An eery dusk walk from UberAmp's flat in the ghetto (Poplar) through the Docklands futurescape followed by food and pints at The Gun and cottaging in Greenwich Park.
quote:Originally posted by mart: I don't want to thread hijack, but I think this idea could run alongside Ben's:
Which fictional bar/club/disco/pub/village fete/etc. would you most like to go to?
I found that one in Hamburg out of a Sven Hassel book. Couldn't believe it was real, and it was absolutely perfect, a real shithole just as he described it about 60 years before. I'd like to go back there one of these days.
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I'm nowhere near as clued up on London nightspots as most of the others, but if you wanted something fairly central you could do worse than:
Here for one of the nicest pints of Timothy Taylor I've had in a proper pub, as opposed to a lot of the chrome and neon infested modern pubs and bars nearby.
Followed by:
This place that I went to with Benway, NWOD and Waynster a while back, who I'm sure will be happy to testify to the fact that it was a better than average Chinese with some very interesting dishes (deep fried oysters, strawberry ribs, soft shell crab) and good service.
And finishing up with an evening of blues, jazz or soul at Ronnie Scott's.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
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