Dale De Groff Mixes FOR YOU!

[Fat Guy]

Do we have time to set up a live video-link ?

Somebody PM me a cell phone number and perhaps we'll try to call in from Beacon.

[Miss J]

Great idea. But The Player is subterranean - therefore, no mobile signal.

[Andy Lynes]

Fat Guy won't be calling until about 10.30pm, we may well be elsewhere by then.

[Simon Majumdar]

Fat Guy has asked me to co-ordinate and call him wherever we may be if we are around. He can't call internationally on his phone ( or he is such a tight wad he wants us to pay for the call )

S

Edited January 22, 2003 by Simon Majumdar (log)

[Fat Guy]

Yes, I would say 5:45 my time would be ideal, and you paying all the better.

[thom]

Andy,

Yes, in retrospect the 'Clerkenwell' thing did cloud the waters a bit. Sorry about that...

Regarding your promised physical attack, I take comfort from the fact that I now know what you look like, whereas I can still hang around the bar in glorious anonymity.

See you all there.

Cheers

Thom

[StephenT]

So how was it? Were the gullies flaming? I hope everyone is hung over enough to tell me it's a good thing I didn't go.

[thom]

Hmmm...

I'm first on? Then again, I suppose I was first to leave, and those two things may be connected.

Other people will I'm sure fill in the gory detail, but I have to say Andy should feel pretty smug for such a big turn out for his birthday.

Unaccustomed as I am to meeting you lot in real life, I hid in the corner with some of my editorial colleagues. The fact there was so many of you, and that you had circled the chairs like cowboys wagons didn't make the experience any less daunting.

Anyway, you all seemed jolly nice, and it was interesting to get to chat to Andy and Simon (the pun-meister) in person at last

Incidentally Andy was exactly as I expected him. So was Simon. One of the previous statements is not a compliment...

So come on chaps, what happened after the fourth or fifth flaming wotsit? Who did what? And to whom?

Cheers

Thom

[Miss J]

Verdict on The Gully:

A nice, fruity, refreshing drink with well-rounded spiced orange flavour. An excellent example of its type. Though personally, I have to agree with Gavin Jones in his assessment that it's a "pleasant breakfast drink." I think it's the vodka base. It just does too good a job of convincing you that you're not really drinking.

[Miss J]

Oh...so those guys at the bar who kept scoping us were actually Thom and his mates? Well that's a relief. I was starting to wonder if they were giving us the, "hey...they're not members here" stare.

[thom]

No, that was my cowardy-custard 'First day at big school I don't know anyone' stare. Easily confused.

To be honest with all the glassy-eyed faces, intense discussions, and Simon rabbiting on about some guy called 'Billy the prophet' I feared egullet might have some cult like initiation for newbies.

I stayed back for fear of becoming a ritual sacrifice, or having to daub my face with fois gras or something.

Cheers

Thom

Edited January 23, 2003 by thom (log)

[Miss J]

To be honest with all the glassy-eyed faces, intense discussions, and Simon rabbiting on about some guy called 'Billy the prophet' I feared egullet might have some cult like initiation for newbies.

Don't be silly. The glassy eyes and intense discussions can be rightly attributed to the side-effects of the Gully(s).

I have no such explanation for Simon, though.

[Gavin Jones]

Decent drinks from the Player. I think pretty much everyone sampled a Gully - saving cocktail queens Simon & Vanessa.

It sounds to me like a Flaming Orange thingy almost certainly has a natural terroir of Belfast or Glasgow.

People then split into the whisky based and the vodka martini drinkers. (Except for my friend Jo who ordered 5 different cocktails by colour until the handsome young waiter hid).

Round the corner to Le Pigalle which was slightly disappointing.

I notice that my interaction with eGulletarians is the same in life as on the board. I stop by, listen briefly to the conversation, either produce camp one-liner or incomprehensible rant and then start on another group.

[Tonyfinch]

Come on. There must be one of you who woke up this morning thinking "Shit! Did I really say/do that?"

[Miss J]

Nope. Of course, I spent a great deal of the evening ranting at Mr J, and he's heard it all before.

[Charlene Leonard]

really liked The Player, will definitely go again. Burnt ends were great. Flaming Gully was pleasant but the martini glasses too small or am I just a greedy pig? (don't answer that Simon)

[SamanthaF]

Flaming Gully - Yummy Yummy.

Great burnt ends and beef ribs.

[macrosan]

Come on. There must be one of you who woke up this morning thinking "Shit! Did I really say/do that?"

Sadly not, Tony. The whole event was really rather refined and restrained, despite Simon's presence.

The FOG was good. Light, refreshing, not at all strong-tasting, and absolutely in line with Gavin J's "breakfast" annotation. Pleasant to drink, good subtle flavours, but once I'd done my duty and had one not a cocktail I would drink for choice. I was a whisky-switcher thereafter

The Player is pleasant, but the music was turned up too loud to permit for comfortable conversation, and the tables they had kindly reserved for us were placed around an external corner so the group inevitably split into two (or three if you count Thom's mob at the bar ). Nevertheless, as always, it was a pleasure to chat to some eGullet friends and to meet a few new ones.

Simon screwed up on the transatlantic phone-link to the New York event, but in fact by the appointed time for that link we were all long gone to get some grub

[Fat Guy]

We were all sitting around the table at Beacon staring at the cell phone from about 5:45pm on, and finally concluded that the intoxication level had probably risen high enough to make reliable inputting of so many digits an impossibility. I imagined a few misplaced keystrokes followed by a long argument between Simon and a weather station in Tasmania.

[Simon Majumdar]

In true Majumdar style, I offered to phone and then realised I did not have my mobile with me. Sorry

The FG drink looked fucking disgusting and I could not force myself to pay good money for one. What was DDG thinking? What was he on

Fortunately, the rest of the cocktails were Ok and the BBQ afterwards even better

S

[Andy Lynes]

The Flaming Orange Gully in fact looked, well, orange, and was very nice I thought. I really liked the club and am pleased to have discovered it. It was a very good turn out, especially considering the main attraction had cancelled on us. I'm afraid I lurked at he bar with the Restaurant magazine mob and as a result was a bit drunk by the time we got to Le Pigalle.

I seem to remember grilling Gavin over every detail of the menu before ordering, which he kindly put up with and provided useful comments rather than tellling me to just shut up and order something, which he could quite reasonably have done. Fish soup was OK, coq au vin was not.

I wandered back to the Player after dinner to see if anyone else had returned, which they hadn't, and ended up having a quick drink and a chat with the manager Fiona, who I had liaised with over the event. An excellent evening which I really enjoyed.

[Fat Guy]

I'm still waiting for my call.

[macrosan]

I'm still waiting for my call.

Yeah, but only Majumdar has your number !!!! So don't hold your breath

[Simon Majumdar]

I'm still waiting for my call.

Yeah, but only Majumdar has your number !!!! So don't hold your breath

I have, and I posted it on Chowhound and the "would like to meet" section of Pig Spankers Weekly.com.

Was that the wrong thing to do?

oops!

S

Edited January 24, 2003 by Simon Majumdar (log)

[Gavin Jones]

Fish soup was OK, coq au vin was not.

The coq au vin looked actively disgusting with a few dried out pieces of what had once been fowl sitting on a bowl of nouilles - never a good sign in a French restaurant.

And they seemed to have forgotten the pommes frites which was a key selling point.

And to think I could have had my end burnt and my pork pulled. Hmmph.