Thursday 9 April 2009

Bohemian Rhapsody - Cafe Boheme, John Snow

There are several drawbacks to writing a blog like this. First, you often are writing with a hangover which can affect the quality of your output. Second by writing with a hangover you demonstrate the poor quality of your output by resorting to naff songs as your article title. Third, in the course of producing a blog dedicated to going out , you inevitably are subject to hangovers.
Hangovers aside, one soldiers on, and on a balmy Wednesday evening the Northerner and I met in sunny Soho where the streets were paved with West End girls and boys celebrating the short working week and the upcoming long Easter weekend. We started off at the John Snow pub in Broadwick Street, which is not named after the newsreader, but instead the doctor who discovered the cure for cholera. Well that's if you believe the twenty-somethings stood next to us. Whatever its history, the John Snow is one of many pubs of choice for Soho's creative set (with nearby the Endurance and the Sun and 13 Cantons also top contenders), and a cracking little venue at that. We stood outside where a hearty supply of organic beers, loads of fashionable (and pretty) young things, and yours truly and the Northerner talking wholeheartedly about ourselves, got the night off to a great start.
The sun set and food beckoned, so we made our way down Old Compton Street and headed one off to one of our favourite old stomping grounds Cafe Boheme .
Boheme was one of the first bars / restaurants I ever went to in London and at the time I thought it the height of sophistication. Well I am from New Zealand. Needless to say, 14 years on, the place still holds up rather well, and is a great late night venue for good French brasserie style food. The crowd is a mix of slightly confused European tourists, tipsy Londoners looking for a good steak. The music is hit and miss - last night was French dance music. Okay in Paris I guess. But service is slick, the food good, and the wines superb. A Provencal Rose more then hitting the spot for this fella.
By 11.30 as we stumbled out to hail one of the now infinite supply of black taxis, and Old Compton Street was in full swing, with queues of lads outside GAY and Bar Soho eying each other suspiciously but both with the same intentions if not targets.
Gotta love Soho. Now to work on that hangover.

2 comments:

  1. Hangover Spellcheckable Hotspots and Typos!!

    "yur"
    "barmy"
    "of to a great start"
    "headed one of our favourite"
    "brassiere"

    I feel for you, my friend, but quality above all else :-)

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  2. The management hate gay people. Best avoided.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13087715

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