Matchboxes (1)

Matchsticks

I am going through matchboxes that I have kept for years and writing what I remember about them. I am doing this because I have a hellaciously bad cold and am kind of delirious and can’t seem to concentrate long enough to do any real work. It may be a stupid idea. Whatever; no one’s forcing you to be here.

The Grove: Bar & Restaurant

This place is in London. In Hammersmith. I associate it with vague disappointment; I think it’s one of those corporate-y pubs with not-very good food and sort of an overly open, Borders-books-ish ambiance. Maybe not. That’s pretty much what I’ve got. But I associate that feeling with these pubs often; like hoping that they’d be warm and sustaining respites from the cold, and finding only overpriced crisps and alcohol.

That makes it sound like I found London cold and lonely. Totally inaccurate. Anyway moving forward.

57 Jermyn Street

Also London. I am resisting the impulse to Google any of these, working totally from memory. Such as it is. I THINK that this is some kind of members-club dining-club place, where you go down a flight of stairs to a subterranean bar/club. A friend of mine worked here and got us in in small groups in my later days in London and perhaps on some subsequent visits there. I liked it, although one time I was there and kind of tired and it was way too loud.

192: Wine Bar & Restaurant

Okay! I remember this. I ate here once, with my friend L. It was upscale, north of Notting Hill Road I think, and it had these nice very London candelabras outside, like torches burning in the night. It was pretty good food actually I don’t remember the freaking food at all, but I remember a nice uncluttered room and a good conversation, I think me and L. were both having a hard time and had stuff to talk about, and…yeah. Good spot. Hope it’s still there; guess I’ll see.

Met Bar

Ah. Okay, my lovely and wonderful then-girlfriend V. worked here. She was a waitress. I remember once picking her up from work from here and we were going to Nobu and she was wearing a short-ish skirt and did a hop-skip of excitement to see me and go to the dinner and it was like the cutest thing I’d ever seen. W/r/t Met Bar, we were about a decade late to the party- it still had some cache, but I think it was really in the 90s that it was like all Gallaghers and what what. But I had some really nice times there; it’s a plain little dark room, off to the side of the lobby of the Metropolitan Hotel. I think I found the drinks fine, although I really wouldn’t have known. I took my parents once, and I think they had a surprisingly good time – it wasn’t such a loud bar, and the atmosphere was certainly not sedate but wasn’t too intense. I remember being surprised by how okay a time they had, and appreciate V.’s impulse to have us come. I think she might’ve also stuck some high-rollers with a few of our drinks. Don’t tell.

Zuma

This is apparently a place in the world where I once was. Honestly, I have no freaking idea.

Notting Hill Brasserie

Uh oh. Okay, I’m pretty sure that actually everything I wrote about that place “192” belongs to this place; no no wait darn it. Hold on, just hold on. No google. Okay, they were on Kensington Park Road. Nice road. And they were both warm and had good food – I think I have both of these associations, maybe? I think that yes I think that this place was the place I thought “192” was, and “192” was a place I went on a later trip with that same lovely friend L., possibly also for an intense conversation about the tough time we both were having.

In front of this place – whichever it was, the one with the torches outside – I also demonstrated a butterfly block for my friend A., making a point about the elegance of karate, in a way that I think we both found pretty satisfying.

Pharmacy

Hoo ho. Okay. Well, this is easy. Easy peazy. Lemon squeazy. This place was opened with the art/design/money/name help of that famous artist who did all the auctions and who puts cows in formaldehyde. It was mostly considered, I think, silly and overpriced. It was a few blocks from my house in Notting Hill, where I lived my first year in England. Highlights include: doing a Brooklyn/Bronx accent (did this really happen? Are you kidding me?) for N. before our disastrous semi-dating experience. I think she wanted to hear the accent, and didn’t realize how unqualified I was. Or something. Anyhoo. More really: getting pretty upset about 9/11 sitting here with V.; it was early days, so I’m not sure how we got into it, but we got into it and I got all upset. I’d been drinking, also. But yeah, I do get upset about that, so that one makes sense. And having a nice “sophisticated” dinner here with my friend A. (different A., although from the same ridiculous posh British boarding school)-  a dude-dinner we’d planned for some time, away from the hustle and hurly-burly of drama school machinations, to enjoy fine fare and elevated conversation. Or something- I think we had something like that in mind. It was nice! I like A.; good guy.

I think it’s closed, since. Not shocking. It was kind of hollow, as a place; no heart.

Langan’s Brasserie

This place, according to its matchbox, is in Stratton Greet, Piccadilly. Other than that, I can tell you nothing about it.