Bodos Schloss

Bodo`s Schloss is an Austrian Apres Ski style restaurant and bar in the High Street Kensington area. They've really gone all out on the decor to make the place look like a little Alpine spot. What's more they serve one of their range of shots in an old wooden ski.  (it's cooler than I've made it sound I promise!).

My friend Miriam and I both had a glass of an Austrian wine.

Happy Waitangi Day at the Bison and Bird

Ok, so Waitangi Day was actually on 6th February and I just didn't get round to blogging about it. TNT Magazine were offering everyone who downloaded a voucher a free drink to celebrate Waitangi Day the Bison and Bird in Clapham.

You can see from the size of the glass that it was not a small free drink. It was a Feijoa based cocktail and I'll be honest, it tasted a bit odd. But you never know until you try these things.

I liked the bar itself, especially this strange antler chandelier. There was also some live music, not sure if the singers were from New Zealand or not though.

Czech beer at Lounge Boheme

Lounge Boheme is a little bar tucked away on the corner of Great Eastern Street.  You have to book in advance to get a seat because it’s really a small place.

Once we’d made our way down the newspaper lined staircase, we were welcomed at the bar and shown to our booth.  The furniture has a very 1950s feel about it and the drinks menus are hidden away within the covers of books, written in a foreign language.  Given that Bohemia is now in the Czech Republic I would hazard a guess and say that the books are written in Czech, but given that I went with an Irish guy and an Italian guy, none of us could confirm this.

The bar does serve Czech beer though, along with a range of cocktails, including an Apple Pie Tini and a Porcini Tini.  My Italian friend told me that porcini means mushrooms in Italian, which should have tipped me off to the fact that the cocktail contained mushroom flavoured vodka.  But for some reason it didn’t click, which was why I ordered and ended up drinking something that tasted like chocolaty cold mushroom soup with a vodka after taste.  

Costa Dorada Spanish Bar and Restaurant

Costa Dorada is down a small street off Oxford Street.  They have live flamenco shows and other Spanish themed events throughout the week.

I went along with the intention of seeing a flamenco show, which was unfortunately cancelled and I ended up in a language exchange instead.  It was still fun, and I got to practice my very basic German with a patient guy who is working freelance in London.

You can check out Costa Dorada's events on their website:
http://www.costadoradarestaurant.co.uk/

Bar Polski

I have spent a lot of time in the Holborn area over the last 2 and a half years and also a lot of time on the internet researching places to visit for my world tour in London. Yet despite this I somehow managed to miss this little Polish bar, run by an Australian called John. I tried 3 different types of vodka and some Polish cider.

The only downside I can see to this bar is that their vodka menu is too extensive to be able to taste them all and remain in any sort of coherent state. A return visit is required I feel.

En Mi Barrio

Barrio North is a latin-inspired riot of colour on Essex Road in Islington.  It has a range of cocktails including some made of tequila and cachaça.  I went there for my Mexican friend Liz's birthday and although I didn't stay long (because I had to work the next day) it looked like it was shaping up to be quite a night.

Karaoke

This was my very first visit to a proper karaoke bar and I was a bit nervous as I have not been blessed with a singing voice.

However, I was surprised how much fun I had.  I think it helped that none of us were particularly good singers and we put on a few silly songs such as Barbie Girl by Aqua and Macarena by Los del Mar.  I think the highlight of our session was Marco singing his very own adaptation of Stevie Wonder's 'Happy Birthday' for Kartik which had us all almost in tears (of laughter I should add).

The karaoke machine had songs in Japanese, Chinese, Korean and English.  We selected which song we wanted using the little stylus and lined them all up.

Garlic and Shots

I'm not entirely sure if Garlic and Shots is supposed to have a theme.  If it does, then is it Sweden? Metal? Garlic? Shots?

My colleagues and I had some horrifically spicy 'blood shots' which would certainly have been the antidote for any flirting/pulling if that had been my aim for the evening.

An odd experience altogether in this bar really; as I was leaning to take a photo of this curious looking person a girl told me that I shouldn't be in the bar because I was wearing the wrong kind of clothes.  I'm not sure what she thought would be the right kind of clothes to go with garlic/metal/Sweden.  I've found so far whilst doing this blog that I've felt welcome everywhere that I have been to (apart from maybe the Gargosian where I felt a bit like I was in some kind of peeping tom experience).

Of course it could be that she objected to the fact that I had forgotten to switch off my MASSIVE chainsaw....

Then later in the evening I noticed that our table appeared to be a flat rectangle of wood placed on top of a wooden box and that if I lifted it slightly I could put my fingers in the box because it was hollow.  At which point I told me colleague 'this box thing appears to be hollow.' and he replied 'it's a coffin.'

Nordic Bar

A Nordic themed bar on Newman Street near Tottenham Court Road.  Things I learned about Nordic Bar:

- they order their herring directly from Denmark.

- it can get quite slippy behind the bar itself.

It's a good job I just write a blog (and a badly written one at that) because I learned a lot more than that but these are the only two things I can remember.  Maybe I should start taking notes...

http://www.nordicbar.com/

Belgo time

Belgo is a small chain of 5 Belgian bars in London serving a range of Belgian beers, as well as moules frites.

http://www.belgo-restaurants.co.uk

The Dishoom Chowpatty Beach Bar

I was telling my friend about a cool place I'd been to last week but had no idea how I'd got there from the roof garden bar at the South Bank centre and he did at one point suggest that I'd imagined the whole thing.

http://dishoom.com/2011/04/the-dishoom-chowpatty-beach-bar-may-sep/

Well here it is, the Dishoom Chowpatty Beach Bar. With fantastic views across the Thames, a relaxed vibe and what I found the most exciting at the time (having had rather a lot of rose wine) blackboards in the bathrooms to write messages on and a brightly coloured bar front.  Hurry there as soon as there's a day of sunshine.