Ladies What Do Champers

this week has been ridiculously hectic. and although i'm skipping ahead to friday, i will bring up thursday in yet another post.

friday was bim's 'classy' hen do with the gals at work.

now let me describe a hen do...london style. at home, we'd call them a stagette where the poor bride would wear a t-shirt with naughty sayings on it and perhaps some life savers as well (suck for a buck), and if you're with the right folks, fredrico the blow up doll would make an appearance on the dancefloor. oh fredrico. i've seen him be spanked by my friend's future mother in law.

the hen do here is of epic porportions. every weekend you see some bride dressed up as the bride (there's no mistaking her) and they all wear matching t-shirts (or some sort of fancy dress - aka costume) and have a rip roaring night where they send of the unmarried life. i'd like to say with style, but i'm not one for sipping from penis straws, dressing like a ho in public, and drinking so much that i need someone to hold my hair back. oh, and did i tell you the drinking starts nice and early, like noon-ish.

so anyway, bim's going to have that sort of night - it is tradition after all, so instead us girls decided on a night we called 'ladies what do champers'. champers is champagne. and we were wearing our poshest dresses...

we started our night at tower 42, a champagne bar with the most amazing views of london. much better than the views on the london eye. bummer for me...i forgot my camera. can you believe it. if you go (and i suggest you do) you should book a table (you get a 2 hour slot per booking) and unlike me, bring the canon because the shots you can make are stunning. we ordered our drinks (all champagne based) and i ended up drinking two lychee belinis. but make sure you bring the cash! drinks are £13 a pop. if you go to the site, click on 'the building' and select 'panorama'.

we then went to sauterelle for some fine french food. sauterelle is located in the royal exchange building. built in the mid 1550s, the building is reflective of the stock exchange building in antwerp (belgium), and along with the other buildings of 1666, it burned to the ground. so in 1669 the new building was erected. the building has been many things, and now it is chalk full of shops (lots of jewelry like tiffany) and on the mezzanine we have sauterelle.

again, bring the pocket book unless you want to partake of the £23 set menu for 3 courses. i however, wanted my own combo, so i started off with yet another champagne cocktail (lychee and raspberry), then had a stuffed courgette flower (literally, one flower) and it was yummy. i then had some sort of chicken with polenta (so creamy) and sweet potato mash. amazing.

we thought the night would still be young and we had almost picked a dance club without the bride knowing but guess who ran out of steam before the dessert showed. our bride was done! at midnight! love it.

anyhoo, all together it was a lovely night with bim, kate, aleksandra and marianne. we are ladies what do champers.