The art of mixing drinks.

An old friend is in town that use to live in London so I had an "orientation" of some of the cool, perhaps sometimes posh places in the west end. What is interesting is that these places are very "hidden" and far from the beaten path. What's interesting too is that he showed me a lounge that he's been to that was for "members only." This lounge had this little peep slot in the door, perhaps used to reveal the secret password for the night? =) But the "members only" lounge didn't have any bright lights or signs, just simply a black door that would normally go unnoticed to the naked eye.

We hit one lounge, called Annex 3, owned by the same people as LoungeLover, another lounge I've blogged about before. What is interesting about this place is the cocktail menu. So many drinks to choose from with so many different ingredients. Some ingredients included coriander, ginger, passion fruit, and even wasabi!

After catching some cheap eats at Chinatown, the end of the night took us to a very posh restaurant/lounge called Hakkasan. After walking into a dark alley and finding it in some hidden corner, the décor was very impressive. Huge selection of expensive drinks and all the bartenders had this same elegantchoreographedd routine of preparing drinks. It was almost like watching a chemistry experiment because they would put an average of 6-7 ingredients into each drink, mix it up, and taste it to see if their experiment went right. I'd definitely take people back to this place. Also, I'm going to have to watch the movie About a Boy again because apparently this restaurant was used in one of the scenes!

At the end of the night I had this sad realization that I spent 10 times more on drinks than I did on food. Now that I think about it, all the drinks I had that night were all more expensive than the plate of food I had in Chinatown. Only in London.