Civet Cat Club, Newington Green

 
Civet Cat Club
Newington Green

Date of Last Visit: Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Victims: Feathers, Jen, Kellie, and many others

The Damage: £30 each, plus BYOB

The Background: Ages ago, Tess from The Civet Cat Club suggested I drop by. You might know how I feel about invites and everything that goes along with them. So part of me was in no rush to drop by, but part of me was still suitably intrigued. Especially because I could more or less take a bus to the Civet Cat Club. I mean, I'd still have to walk, but it wasn't in Kensington or anything. It was my side of town. Points.

And it was underground. And mysterious.

So combine that with the needs for a girls' night, and we four (Yanks, all of us) found ourselves in Newington Green one Thursday evening. Feathers and Jen totally knew what we were up to (i.e., underground supper club). Kellie just thought we were going out to a restaurant. (And as such, she must have thought I was a total bitch when I emailed the gang on Wednesday telling everyone that if they were going to back out, they needed to let me know asap because I knew the restaurant was going to have to buy ingredients for us.)

The Entrance: Totally retro-modern. I could live here. Easily. In fact, I'd like to move it. Is this okay?  Honestly, we were all salivating over furniture, not food, upon arrival.

Our hostess showed us to our table–a table for eight–and we introduced ourselves to our fellow dinner companions. Two couples who didn't know each other or us. But hey, we were mostly all on Twitter, so of course we exchanged contact details.

Up first is salmon sashimi with wasabi, shallot crunch, and a lotus root crisp. I liked the wasabi cream. (And the salmon of course.) Less a fan of the lotus root, but I think that's more a generality. I also like my new iPhone, as you can see in the photo. I can't let it out of my sight. I believe I'd had it for about 3 days at this point.

 
Star anise and mussel broth with sourdough bread…really luscious broth. Good for scooping up with the bread. Star anise was just a lingering flavor…not overpowering, which we had worried about after reading the menu.

 
Best dish of the night in my opinion…mackerel with a spicy peanut noodle salad. I love mackerel. I love peanuts. And I'm a sucker for lime. So this all triangulated for me. Perfectly so. Feathers begged me to get the recipe afterwards. (But she must have been very drunk because when I produced said recipe, she said, "I wanted this???  Honestly no idea what I wrote on that comment card I was so drunk!  LOL.  Can't wait to try though it might stink up the house." Ungrateful wretch, isn't she?)

What Feathers Said: The next day, Feathers sent an e-mail to all her girlfriends around the world (she had many friends in far away places)–all about the Civet Cat Club. I kid you not. Here is what she had to say, in her own words:

Thanks to Krista for inviting Kellie, Jen and me to a secret supper club.  The idea of a supper club is someone creates a restaurant for the night, takes a small number of reservations, and a chef gets to try out a menu. [NB: I don't exactly agree with this definition, but it's Feathers' and we'll let it rest.] In this case the person hosting does a supperclub at their home about once a month. The home was amazing. The whole house was perfectly decorated with fabulous modern design. There was a vaulting horse in the living room and some random stuffed animals-like taxidermy stuffed. It sounds odd but was sooo cool. 

 

So we get there at 7:30 and head up to the top floor which is an amazing open kitchen with a deck off it.  They have set up three tables-one of 8 and one 5 and one 4. Krista ensured we go the big table. [NB: I didn't do anything to get us on the big table.] They put the four girls in the middle and we had a couple on either end. I think half the reason we had fun was both couples were cool. I have never laughed so hard in my whole life. Oh and it was BYOB and we did bring a lot so that helped. At one point people were trying to talk to people at the other end of the table so we developed a rotation so everyone would get to talk to new people. It was like speed dating for friends. It started out interesting talking about social media and books we have read and then at the end of the night Jen was telling them about the Wiener Circle in Chicago and everyone was laughing so hard all the other tables were staring. I apologized to the Englishman next to me and said sorry this happens a lot when you have Americans at dinner and I know the English stare so you must be embarrassed.  He said, "Oh no!  They are staring because they are jealous we are having more fun. It's great."  I never thought of it that way.  :-) 

 

And the food. It was amazing. I was not so excited about the menu.  I don't like star anise, not a fan of lychee and wasn't sure about mackerel. It was all fabulous!!!  Still dreaming about the mackerel in peanut noodles (menu attached). [NB: It's not attached.] There was a slight issue with the fish smoking up the kitchen and we had to open windows but other than that it was fine. 

 

So that is my tale of the secret supper club in London. I want to go to another but don't know how it can live up to last night. I didn't get home until midnight and am a bit hungover today but all worth it.

 
The Dessert: (Back to regularly scheduled programming.) You know I love lemon so I can't possibly write anything that's not biased. And the deep-fried lychee? I was totally okay with that. (Normally not a huge lychee fan.)

The Verdict: Unbelievably amazingly good time at The Civet Cat Club. Great food, great dinner companions. Much fun had by all. Did not want the night to end. Would do it again in a heartbeat. You should go. Contact the Civet Cat Club now and book your table!