Wednesday 21 May 2014

129. Jazzing It Up Scottish Style

8th May 2014, Boisdale of Belgravia, Belgravia, London

It’s hardly something to celebrate, but on one of these last nights with our favourite Yummy Mummy in London Town and the very last night out with the girls, we needed to go somewhere suitably one of a kind to fit the occasion.
 
Knowing of Yummy Mummy’s love for jazz, that seemed like the thing to go for. For some reason Singapore doesn’t strike me as a jazz loving nation. However, finding a restaurant or bar that plays live jazz was easier said than done as it turns out - this in the city where you can have dinner at a pig themed burlesque show, eat kangaroo steak with crispy deep fried bugs for dinner or drink your champagne cocktails out of a French horn. But jazz with your meal may be too conventional to work in good old London Town.
 
In the end I remembered Boisdale of Belgravia being known for their jazz gigs and as I regularly have intense meat porn themed daydreams containing the burgers at their East London venue, why on Earth not? After all, we were being abandoned for Asian adventures either way, so I may as well be selfish and choose a dining option based on the list and my food fantasising.

The thing to know with this group of ours, is that 7 pm can mean anything from 7 pm, on a good day, to just around 9 pm. It rarely means that Hell’s Bells having arrived both first and on time. I think she was as shocked as the rest of the crew. Shocked and uncomfortable at that. She later admitted to spending the 10 minutes of lonesomeness, before the arrival of the Kiwi, googling ‘things to do in a restaurant alone’.

So two hours after the agreed time, there we all were. Hell’s Bells and The Four Blondes (now this would be one hell of a 70’s rock band). Almost, but just almost ready to see one of the blondes off before her escape from Europe.  

So, Scottish restaurant – one is expected to try haggis right? I spent a good 30 minutes trying to ensure that someone wasn’t this particular blonde and that I could instead tick the haggis eating experiment off my list by taking it off someone else’s plate. I had very little success with this side project and instead wound up with some not-so-Scottish gravad lax. But oh well, that’s another excuse to go for a weekend in lovely Edinburgh soon.

One might say that they try to do one thing too many at Boisdale of Belgravia. It’s a Scottish restaurant, it’s a jazz bar, it’s a members club, it’s a cigar lounge and it’s a champagne bar - all rolled into one. But it does work. The tartan chairs somehow goes with the American jazz music and the smell of Cuban cigars somehow goes with the pre dinner G&T's. Plus we saw one of the NCIS cast members there which made the night for a crime TV junkie like me!

The truffle burgers here were as freakishly delicious like the ones over in the Wharf, if not more. I could however have lived without the more in this instance, seeing as three blondes and one Hell’s Bells spent the following night and some of the next day not really keeping the burgers or anything else down. Food poisoning really is a bitch and so is the girl at Boisdale picking up the phone being told of said food poisoning. I didn't say you were personally responsible for trying to kill me lady, just that someone at your restaurant clearly is.

Food poisoning or not, we did have a great night and it’s hard to believe it will be such a long time before we will all be in the same room again!

Then there were three…. And Hell’s Bells.

Hell's Bells and the Four Blondes

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