Friday

Notting Hill Narcotics!

My cousin's have come all the way from Dubai to visit us this summer. All that I know of Dubai is that everything is BIG, expensive, fancy, and tall. I also know that the clubs in Dubai, (which I only found out today all exist inside hotels?!) are amazing. 

My cousin's party all the time and we wanted to create a home away from home feel for them so took them out to Notting Hill. What started off as a few casual drinks ended up with us throwing some extravagant shapes on the dance floor, being drunk and incoherent when ordering KFC at 2am (diet fail), running away from a man we named 'creep' who we believed to be a killer, making friends with a French man named Paul who told me he prefers London to Paris because us Londoners are ever so friendly and inviting, and waking up the rest of my family when we finally got home to chat endless drunken babble. Like most other unplanned nights, it turned out to be awesome!

We started off at Tequilla Tex Mex. This joint does good Mexican food but their extensive list of cocktails and shooters are out of this world and worth travelling all the way around London for. They have hundreds of options to choose from with some fun and wacky names like 'alien urine' and 'cowboy cocksucker' (which actually is an amazing shooter!). We ordered pitchers of the strawberry margarita which were pricey at £25 but so very worth it.

They're open until 12:30am on weekdays, and 2:30am on weekends - plenty of time to get drunkity drunkity drunk and make big fools out of yourselves like we did!


After Tequilla Tex Mex, we had a nice buzz going and weren't ready to end the party yet. Conveniently for us, right next door is a club that has existed for years and one that I've always wanted to go to called The Notting Hill Arts Club. 

Since I have lived near Notting Hill for most of my life, it is surprising that I have never been to this place (until last night). There are always huge ques to get in on the weekends, and there was a little que forming by the time we went last night so we assumed it was a sign that it must be great inside. 

We asked the bouncer if it was a private member's club to which he replied no. We asked him what music it was, and he told us that initially they had live bands playing and the rest of the night would be old school pop played by a DJ. Satisfied with this answer, we payed the fiver entry fee each, walked down the stairs, opened the doors, and found ourselves in hell.

The first thing my cousin said to me as soon as we realised we were in the equivalent of club hell was, "oh man - I have had nightmares about places like this!" Bless his little heart that is used to expensive, fancy, beautiful, Dubai nightclubs.

Maybe I'm too prissy, but I feel like the Notting Hill Arts Club was not an ideal place for us because the music was not old school pop, it was weird beats that you can't really dance to unless you're on drugs. It was also too small, too filthy, too cramped, smelt really bad, and didn't have much else going for it. However, the drinks were cheap so we drank enough to find the situation very amusing for about 20 minutes.


As you can imagine, we didn't stay very long. We downed our double vodka's as soon as we could and made a run for it to The Gate which is a couple of minutes away and guaranteed to be a fun night. My friends and I have all had a few birthday's at The Gate so we knew what to expect. 

It's small but pretty, intimate, and laid-back. On Thursday through to Saturday, the music is so so good. They play old school pop (yes, backstreet boys and five did make a musical appearance of course), commercial hits, and current RnB. They mixed some old school hip-hop in there and basically made our entire nights complete. 

We drank Rekorderligs, danced with a lot of strangers, watched a sick dance off take place, wanted to get involved in said dance off but knew better even though we were intoxicated, booed when the lights came on and they tried to chuck us out, and smiled all the way across the road to KFC knowing that we salvaged the night and showed my cousins why London is a great city to party in too.


What are some of your favourite neighbourhood spots to hit for an unplanned fun night out? xoxo

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