Category: Bars & Restaurants

Written in the Stars

The frosty flurry in old London Town soon turned to sloppy slurry. Sunday was our day of rest away from commitments. We decided to do what we rarely do these days – a West End jolly, just the two of us. It was a strangely alien experience. The Sunday evening stalwart – Jivin’ Julie’s karaoke night for the hairy marys down the Kings Arms (or Kings Arse, as it’s affectionately known) was a shadow of its former self. The fat crowd has thinned to just a few old fairy faithfuls. We ventured to Comptons, the pivot around which gay Soho revolves, to find it bereft of punters except for a few lonely tourists, northern fag hags in mountainous heels and Russell Grant. Sadly, cuddly Russ hasn’t managed to keep the weight off following his stint as housewive’s choice on Strictly Come Dancing. I bet he didn’t see that coming in the stars.

All the bars told a similar sad and sorry tale. Was it the long recession or the wind chill that kept the boys under the duvet? Perhaps it was neither. Restaurants were buzzing away to the sound of glasses clinking and tills cher-chinking. Perhaps the crowd has moved on to pastures new. Perhaps the pubs should lower their beer prices. We joined the throng at an eaterie and supped Rioja into the small hours.

Ringing the Belles

New Year’s Eve brought a couple of tremors and torrential rain to Bodrum. We refused to let Mother Nature throw us off kilter or dampen our spirits as we joined the Bodrum Belles to drink in the New Year. The place of our undoing was Musto’s Restaurant, our haunt of choice. The source of our undoing was a bottle of Jaegermeister doing the rounds courtesy of a particularly boozy Belle (you know who you are). Think 100% proof cough mixture. At the stroke of midnight, Liam and I kissed in front of a passing copper, put out some windows with a salvo of party poppers the size of bazookas, watched the creditable firework display and shuffled from side to side to classic, cheesy, gay dance tracks of yesteryear. I wonder who chose the music?

It doesn’t get much cheesier than this.

Have you checked out the book yet?

Gentleman Jack

Nose to Nipple Brits

To provide a little liquid respite from the endless book edits, I joined the Gümbet Gals for toasts and tittle-tattle. I hailed the dolly on the promenade, paid my fare and sat next to an elderly Turk who began to engage me in animated conversation. Despite my pathetic attempts to explain in Turklish that I couldn’t understand a word, he wittered on regardless, much to the amusement of the Turkish ladies in front of us. I smiled sweetly like the Queen Mother, nodding now and again to pacify him. The dolly sped over the hilly promontory that separates Bodrum from its uglier sister and dropped me off at the edge of the resort. I strolled through the silent streets. Gümbet is closed for the winter and all the tattooed pot-bellied Brits have returned to Blighty. My destination was Jack’s Bar (the name’s just a happy co-incidence), an inexpensive and unpretentious little watering hole just off the now locked up main drag. It’s one of the few establishments that stays open all year. I spent a funny, sunny afternoon gassing and guzzling with the Gals. As the sun set and the air grew chilly, I’d had my fill and the delightful owner gave me a lift home. What a gent.

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Bodrum, Nice and Slow

The tyranny of summer is behind us and a blesséd autumn waits impatiently out to sea. The mugging muggy days have given way to bright warmth and cooler, cuddly nights. Having outlived the big heat, we reoccupied the upper floor of the house for the first time in two months. I was glad to become re-acquainted with our superior sprung marital mattress.

Bodrum’s hysterical nightlife has slowed to a thin trickle. The hordes are back in Istanbul and the whores are back in Kiev, replaced by Teutonic types in fishing hats and sandals with socks. The hassle boys along bar street are out in force to squeeze one last pushy sale and itinerant workers are heading home to their winter pastures to marry their cousins. Fink, the exemplar rich bitch bar has gone into hibernation and its huge swaying red chandelier, the most photographed light fitting this side of Versailles, will soon be dismantled and packed away. This is Bodrum at its best. Snap it up while you can.

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Turk Season

Sizzling Bodrum

There’s Hope for Us All

For the Love of Ada

We were having a quiet drink and admiring the semi-clad totty in Café S Bar opposite the town beach, when an elderly couple called Morris and Edna struck up a conversation. Morris is the strong silent type which was just as well as he couldn’t get a word in edgeways. Full of life Edna has an infectious laugh and reminded me of the late, fabulous Irene Handl, an amazing British film and TV actress whose career spanned sixty years until her death in 1987. Irene was a feisty lady. Responding to a director who was trying to explain the motivation of her character in a play she said, ‘I think you’ve mistaken me for someone who gives a fuck.’

Morris and Edna are lodging in Gümbet and had ventured into Bodrum for a gander. They live in separate sheltered housing schemes, she in London, he in Wales. They met on the internet and are at it like geriatric rabbits. Apparently, Edna can’t bend over to adjust her corn plasters without Morris trying to take her from behind. Marvellous. There’s hope for us all.

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Whirl Like a Dervish

Whirl Like a Dervish

DervishTo celebrate our deliverance from delirium, we fancied a night on the tiles and chanced upon a small nightclub, very Turkish and surprisingly chic. Turkish pop filled the room and young trendy things revolved around the dance floor like whirling dervishes. There was one tiny sensory drawback though, prompting Liam drunkenly to declare ‘my gift to Turkey is deodorant.’ Foreigners were definitely in the minority, though we caught the eye of a couple of likely western ladies, one of whom was topped off with a curly ginger perm and who writhed around the dance-floor like orphan Annie’s grandmother. We sang The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow knowing full well that it always does in Asia Minor at this time of year. Happy and contented we made our way home in the wee small hours picking up a kebab on the way; a very distant relation to the slop that’s dished up in Walthamstow.

Tarty Chic

We sank a jar in a glitzy overpriced watering hole along the marina promenade and observed the rich-kids at play. The children of the Turkish urban elite are a strange breed. Many of the boys wouldn’t look out of place in Soho and the girls drape themselves in expensive tarty-chic virtually indistinguishable from the Russian ladies of the night who ply their trade discretely around them. It all conveys an emancipated image that I suspect is illusory given the deeply conservative nature of society even at the highest echelons.

Sizzling Bodrum

Old Bodrum Town has hit the season running. In the heat of the day people slowly amble along the promenade, gorge on gossip in the cafés, browse and graze in the posh shops or relax under cooling shade of a tall palm tree. By night the prom sizzles to the heavy beat of Turkopop and a madding crowd of the weird, the wonderful and the well-to-do. This is my rapid round up of what’s hot and what’s not along Bodrum’s celebrated promenade.

Musto’s – Great food, great prices, great host and popular with the biker’s fraternity
Zazu – Nice food, pricey wine, good ambience
Hong Kong – Cross the street to avoid the relentless hassle from the waiters
Good old M&S – Older Turkish men just love their Blue Harbour range
Sünger Pizza. An old Bodrum stalwart. Unpretentious. Try and get a table on the roof terrace
Kahve Dünyası – Great coffee, pretty waiters and a chocolate spoon with every cup
Marina Vista – Lovely hotel in a great location. Pity about the surly service
Tango – So, so steaks, astronomic wine prices, arrogant waiters.
The Yacht Club – Cool place with live music
Fink – You’d need a second mortgage to drink in here
Helva – I spy a lady of the night
Is there anywhere in the world without a Starbucks?

So You Think You Can Dance?

We decided on a diverting night of fun and frolics in Bodrum to celebrate vetpat Charlotte’s birthday. Nancy was back in town, continuing the ebb and flow of her frequent sojourns and combining her twin roles as best friend and chief concubine. Leaving Alan convalescing at home, Charlotte and Nancy arrived dressed to impress, replete with f*ck me heels and bountiful bouncing breasts shimmering in the twilight like overripe waxed melons. As we promenaded along the marina, men of all ages fixed their gaze at cleavage level and jaws hit the newly renewed paving. We dined at Tango, an Argentine-themed steakhouse where meals are served on bloodied breadboards and the price of run of the mill French wine is stratospheric.

After the meal, Charlotte escorted us to a bar of her long acquaintance called Seyfi, famous for ethnic entertainment and décor of manufactured authenticity. Charlotte, Nancy and Liam danced the night away in true local style. I eyed up the talent. Liam’s dance technique, woefully inadequate to the hard beat of the Freemasons was strangely adept at indigenous rhythms.

Our girl’s night of carefree flirtation was cut short by the drunken arrival of Sultan Irfan, the philanderer. Charlotte had unwisely texted him our location and he’d come in search of Nancy, his troublesome and tempestuous paramour. Irfan bounced in a like a giant pinball, finally coming to rest at an adjacent table. Nancy faked outrage at his intrusion but grabbed Liam for a seductive boogie in a brazen attempt to incite his jealousy. I observed from the wings. It was a pretty futile exercise as Liam hadn’t slept with anyone of the fairer sex since the early eighties and these days would need an instruction manual and a road map. Even though Irfan knows Liam’s inclinations, Nancy’s strategy worked. Clearly, I have completely underestimated the any port in a storm mentality of the average Turkish male.

Needless to say, Irfan and Nancy ended the game cooing like adolescent love birds. Irfan escorted the girls home, determined to nibble on Nancy’s savoury titbits. Liam and I retired to the house to watch the sun rise and contemplate the destructive tango of these two middle-aged, lustful teenagers.

Bodrum, A Town of Two Halves

We fancied a few bevvies in the sunshine to talk the afternoon away. Bodrum is a town of two halves divided by the castle. Like London the east end is the rougher, dominated by Bar Street, a procession of cheap and cheerful bars and hassle shops patronised by the foreign tourists who either board in that part of the town or have ventured in from Gümbet. The west end is swanky and obscenely expensive. The exemplar bar is Fink a lavish watering hole dominated by an enormous overhanging sparkly red chandelier suspended from a graceful arched crane. The elegantly carved gate is guarded by a platoon of huge, brooding bouncers. Only the moneyed sort gain entrance. The bar is set above the street enabling the seriously loaded to look down on the plebeians passing by below.

I Fink It’s Fantastic

We prefer the east end by day where totty watching is more fruitful and the drink prices more palatable. We generally frequent Café S Bar, an unrefined little watering hole opposite the town beach. A rainbow flag hangs proudly alongside the ubiquitous Cross of St George, Cross of St Andrew, Irish tricolour and Welsh Dragon. Everyone’s welcome regardless. You may be lucky to watch the owner, Ozzie, strip down to his tight trunks and dive into the shallow waters, weapon in hand, looking to spear the catch of the day. I’m not sure if this is a serious expedition or just done to impress the girls and some of the boys. It certainly impresses me. Unlike the bar, the toilets can be dry so a number two is not recommended.