When winter arrives, & London turns it's lights down, it becomes one fuck of a dreary place. The sky turns to stone, the grey expanse of tenement houses & asphalt roads all unite in drab homogeny. Grey, dark, dark, grey. Just as you're giving oral sex to a shotgun, ready to paint the skyline with your own grey matter, you remember that other people have been feeling the same way in this city for centuries, & that some have had the initiative to craft escape-pods, incubators & time machines to hide from the oppressive dark seasons. Nestled in a Hackney side street, I found my own little parallel world to escape the London doldrums. Pacific Social Club is an all in one incubator/time machine/escape pod. Stepping into this little cafe, father-time's whip was suddenly too short to reach my back, I felt calm away from the hustle & bustle, I was at ease amongst the colourful bunting, 78-sleeve wallpaper, pacific island tiki carvings, wood panel transistor radios, the LP player wooing me with it's warm analogue patter, the gentle clatter of antique cups & saucers, straight out of a time-warp. This felt like home, & I didn't want to leave.
Now it's all very well & good having a carefully crafted aesthetic, but it can easily look trite or hackneyed (double-entendre) in an age where "vintage" is the old new. This place not only brims with authenticity, but it has two other key ingredients which really give it the trifecta: friendly staff, & most importantly, great food. I was fairly ravenous when I arrived, as I hadn't had breakfast or lunch, & it was already 1pm. I settled in to the Venezuelan sandwich with chorizo, beans, avocado & cheese. This toasted treat was so packed with flavour, I had to curse Jesus aloud. Once my savoury craving was satisfied, I whet my appetite on the carrot cake with cream cheese icing (it might have had cinnamon on the icing, I think?), to be honest I was still so blinded by the afterglow of that toastie, that I could've been spooning dogshit into my gob & still been happy, but nah, the carrot cake was actually great too. In the word of California's former Governor, I'll be back...Pacific Social Club...
Pin It
Now it's all very well & good having a carefully crafted aesthetic, but it can easily look trite or hackneyed (double-entendre) in an age where "vintage" is the old new. This place not only brims with authenticity, but it has two other key ingredients which really give it the trifecta: friendly staff, & most importantly, great food. I was fairly ravenous when I arrived, as I hadn't had breakfast or lunch, & it was already 1pm. I settled in to the Venezuelan sandwich with chorizo, beans, avocado & cheese. This toasted treat was so packed with flavour, I had to curse Jesus aloud. Once my savoury craving was satisfied, I whet my appetite on the carrot cake with cream cheese icing (it might have had cinnamon on the icing, I think?), to be honest I was still so blinded by the afterglow of that toastie, that I could've been spooning dogshit into my gob & still been happy, but nah, the carrot cake was actually great too. In the word of California's former Governor, I'll be back...Pacific Social Club...
No comments:
Post a Comment