Sunday, April 10, 2011

Review: Love Brunch at supperclub

I'd been wanting to go to Love Brunch, the daytime clubbing affair at supperclub in Notting Hill, for ages. I'm not sure what it was about it, but, quite possibly, the sheer decadence of it all - you arrive at 12 pm, eat brunch, get sloshed on cheap drinks and dance the afternoon away, while watching the occasional performance - just made it sound so very trendy and cool. It also sounded way too good to be true, and I'll confess, despite having booked a month in advance (otherwise, you don't get to lounge in a bed), I was really worried I'd dragged a bunch of friends all the way to West London, on a day the nearest tubes were closed, all for nothing.

On the day itself, I decided to check Qype to see what kind of place it was. I'd not been to the supperclubs in Amsterdam, Bangkok or even Singapore before, so didn't know what to expect. To my horror, it had some incredibly bad reviews and some rather good ones. I know I shouldn't feel bad about events being complete rubbish if I'm not the events organiser, but I just always feel so responsible as my friends wouldn't normally have gone for these things if I hadn't told them about this.

(There is a reason I'm known as a walking Time Out of whatever city I happen to be in.)

In any case, we rocked up rather late given the aforementioned transport issues. It was quite a mission to get there! We went in, were given stickers with our bed number and shown to our bed upstairs. One of our party had been there waiting for us for half an hour all by myself, much to our mortification. A staff member - dressed in something very much out of Mortal Kombat - came over to make sure we were indeed her friends (in a jokey way).





Then it was down to the business of ordering. They had proper dishes on the menu (burgers - £14, salmon and eggs - £9, green curry soup), but the table was so small that it was hard to order much. I guess they were trying to go for something not-quite-restaurant-like. In any case, the food wasn't too expensive.

And the drinks! The drinks seemed incredibly cheap. Bellinis and mimosas were £5 each! You can pretty much guess what we drank for the rest of the day. I lost count of how many rounds we ordered, and I'll find out soon enough when my friend sends me the bill.
 

There was also the giant martini option for £70, but, fortunately, good sense prevailed.

The strange thing was that it felt very much like being in Singapore.

Yes, I know, how on earth can a club in Notting Hill feel like home to me? Well, it reminded me of the times I'd clubbed at km8, when we were drinking in the afternoon, and just listening to the same kind of music, and, well, even the crowd felt familiar.

It was an unexpected antidote to homesickness.

Sometime after 2 pm, the performances started. There was a tranny who was cooking pancakes (I'm rather disturbingly having difficulty distinguishing between transvestites and big women), a fire-eater and a saxophonist, among others. Of course, everyone was getting quite trashed by this stage, so, of course we were having fun.

It was most definitely not as bad a place that some of the reviews I'd read made it out to be. Our waiter was nice, the service was prompt and the beds were really nice and clean (at first). It wasn't at all posher-than-thou nor was it filled with w*****s.



I really liked that we were seated upstairs. We had a good view of the dance floor and, this way, very little chance of a performer coming and dragging us on to the dance floor. We also had more space, which meant that I soon busted out every dance move I'd ever done in street dance class, including a pseudo-moon-walk, the hip hop strut and the Beyonce squat (something which comes out whenever I get drunk).

Freakin' 'eck, if I'm cursed with a most un-Chinese-like butt, I might as well flaunt it from time to time, no?

All in all, I had a wonderful time. The staff was wonderful and the music was decent. I was so incredibly happy and I was surrounded by old friends. It's just so great that I've managed to have had some great outings recently and just been so happy.


Then the music stopped at 6 pm sharp and we stumbled out into the evening, much worse for the wear, but fully intending to enjoy the rest of the day. That is, until I got home at 8 pm, decided to take a nap before heading back out and waking up at 1.45 am! Whoops!

Conclusion: Love Brunch is fantastic, especially for people like me who are getting on a bit and want to be in bed at a sensible time but who still want to club.

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