Supper with Strangers

Jennifer coordinated a night out for us Saturday to attend a supper club with strangers.  Old Bill would have been dragging his feet, but New Bill said "Hell, yes".  Jen continues to find more fun things to do in London than anyone I've met since we've been here.

The woman who hosts the dinner says she runs these several times a month.  Ten strangers come to her beautiful house in Islington and she cooks a five course meal for them.  We had a great, interesting night.  Let's explore it.

(More on the art work to follow)

We had a lovely diverse group.  The woman on the left is from New York and has lived in London eight years.  She came alone and said she likes to meet new people at these events.  The woman next to her is French.  She and her partner live in Notting Hill.  Coincidently we ran into them at the movies on Sunday.  Look at us knowing people as we stroll around the big city.

This is our evenings villain.  You'll see why.

Roshni is our new friend.  We have her email address and hopefully can convince her and Sonny, her boyfriend, to join us for Quiz Night sometime.

We were not brave enough to ask our host about the painting but I loved that it was there.  It gave the rest of us something to talk about other than the usual "Do you come to dinner parties like this often?"

I lured Roshni into a game of table hockey.  I'm not sure our host approved.  We were in a little side table which we labeled The Kids Table.  So we acted appropriately, I think.

 I won the table hockey game.  Our villain looks on.

After the dinner we all said goodbyes, but Jen and I got to be the cool kids for once.  Sonny and Roshni wanted to keep drinking and they quietly invited us out.  Sonny is just a little older than Bret, by the way.

After a beer at the nearby pub we walked to a hidden speakeasy.  Seriously, we went to a speakeasy!

No sign on the door.  Half hour wait to get in.  We had no idea what we were in for.

We've seen people lined up to get into nameless places before but we always walk by with the feeling that the rest of the world knows something we don't.  Which is true.

But tonight we were the people who go to speakeasys at midnight.

The club was a perfect fit for us.  They had rules that everyone has a seat so there isn't the crammed bar scene.  The decor was funky art deco, speakeasy-retro.  The drinks were fabulous complex concoctions.  They smoked, caught on fire, had flamboyant accoutrement and were delicious.  Jen and I usually don't drink mixed drinks but we were cool tonight.

See the smoking tea!  Alcoholic tea of some order.

My whisky drink had a spicy rice cake and a corn husk fan for no apparent reason.  The ceramic glass I drank out of sat in a wood box filled with some herb thingy (I'm running out of words).  I loved it for it's audacious irreverence (found a couple of words).

Tried a hundred pictures of Jen and Roshni.  I never know which ones Jen will like so I posted them all.  We closed the place and got home after 3:00am.  The only time I'm ever up at 3:00am is when I have stomach problems.  This was much better.

If you've made it this far you will be rewarded with the story of our dinner party villain.  He was good enough fun.  Told a few good stories.  As he got a bit drunker he droned on a bit about his world travels.  He gave us the 411 about some places to see in the UK.  He told some stories about Bangkok and Thailand that left us with a few questions about his morality, but whatever.  Who are we to judge? 

Then when we left he folded up his business card, waited until he was alone with Jen and told her if she wanted to hear more about the UK spots to give him a call.  The bastard gave my wife his number with his wife in the next room!

When Jen told us at the pub she proudly announced "I still got it!".

Damn right she does.