whine & dine

Wandered through Club Street today – lunch plus a visit to the dentist (yes, I’m one of the few who aren’t actually afraid of my dentist: could have something to do with how I don’t evade my twice-yearly visits) – and was quite shocked by how much the place has changed in these last 4+ months.

Union Bar, a place I frequented quite a lot in the 11 months that I lived in Club Street (street level bar of the now also defunct My Dining Room) is gone. Emptied and gutted just like my favourite mama shop (though that one went just before I left for my month long holiday in the US). The old damenlou hotel which used to sit quiet, forgotten and unnoticed, aside from the pile of letters scattered through the mail slot just inside the main entrace, has been replaced by a very snazzy looking new enterprise, Screening Room. I do want to check that place out soon.

A couple of the other landmarks remain – Front Row still sits proudly at the corner where Club Street joins into Ann Siang Road, Asylum – across the road and down a couple of doors. More recently discovered wacha‘s still there too (thank god), and the two or three casual french restaurants – as chock full of attitude as they are with delicious, oily, buttery, fatty food. A couple of new interior design/kitchen design places seem to have popped up – both along Club Street and parallel Amoy Street, where the bunny and I had lunch – much to our delight, and Bulb is still proudly staking its claim on Gemill Lane.

It’s strange, how fast things around you change. Those few shops you take for granted disappear in the blink of an eye, that rotting hotel which no one cared for, and one of the places where I was guaranteed freshly fried crisp, fluffy, awesome fries (and KEBABS oh god I just remembered the kebabs). Memories there too, which now seem to have faded – people I sat there with, people I slouched with a couple of doors down at Indochine, dinners at Jerry’s – gorging on the potato skins and buffalo wings.

It’s unnerving, really. 12 months ago, if you’d have told me that 12 months from then I’d be sitting in this huge (by comparison) flat, a stone’s throw from my favourite hangout spot, owning a red hot coffee machine and Kitchenaid, sniffing my nose at Gaggenau appliances (now that I know, first hand, that they really don’t work), and planning for a huge ass renovation to shape the home I’m going to live in for the rest of my life with this woman, I’d have laughed. The rest of my life? That’s a mighty long time.

Yet here I am, all of that behind me, eagerly grabbing hold of your hand and racing with you into my future – into our future. The world can change into a completely unrecognizable beast and I wouldn’t give two hoots; so long as you’re right here with me.