An expensive Bar Salsa on a Monday

July 30, 2007

I thought it was as good an opportunity or excuse to check out Bar Salsa on a Monday when Mimi asked me if I wanted to join her and Marina on their outing. Three of us left Cambridge separately - Marina in the morning, Mimi early in the evening right after work, and me shortly after 8:30. The plan was to meet at Bar Salsa around 10.

As I suspected, finding parking was not easy and was not helped by labyrinth that is London road system (typical of all European cities and towns I have been to - even Cambridge can be vexing). I decided to take a risk and park in a resident only spot shortly after 10, and then talk to people at Bar Salsa to assess risk. After talking to a security staff, Andrew, Susana and finally Nikki (the only one who drove a car), I decided that I better move my car before getting a ticket. Unfortunately by the time I returned (no more than 15 minutes), I saw that there was a ticket attached to the front window of my car. Oh well. According to Nikki, the damage was going to be in excess of £100. I did not bother looking at the ticket and went straight back to Bar Salsa without moving the car.

There were a lot of people at Bar Salsa, but it was not as crowded as I expected. Club Salsa on Fridays is more packed. Surprisingly large number of people seemed to be using Cuban moves as a major part of their repertoire. There was also fair number of On2 people. Generally I was not particularly impressed - I thought it was not as good as SOS or Scala. I think I preferred the crowd at the LDA social couple of nights ago too. It took me a few songs before I could even get myself to ask anyone for a dance - in part because I did not see too many people I wanted to dance with but perhaps also in large part because the parking ticket put me in a poor mood.

Mimi and Marina did not arrive until around 10:45. Just before their arrival, I had my first dance. I danced with Mimi next, and then saw her get asked by one of the contestants from the Scala Latinfest dance competition heat next. Either the dance next or the one after the next was pretty good, so the first three of four dances were pretty enjoyable. There were some interesting dances afterwards including one with Nikki, but generally I found it difficult to enjoy myself dancing tonight. It probably did not help that about a third of the girls I asked for a dance declined - it seemed people were generally more reticent about accepting dances from someone they did not know or have seen compared to SOS, Scala, LDA social, etc. I think the one new partner I liked dancing with (twice tonight) might have been someone I met at the LDA social and also had a nice dance then.

I had heard that things generally improve after midnight or so as only the better dancers stay. I did not really see a big improvement - to me it seemed like the place just became quieter without overall level of prospective dancers improving very much. Perhaps if I were more of an insider, I would have found it more fun. There also seemed to be higher ratio of men compared to women, so finding any willing partner after midnight was tricky. If this is typical of Bar Salsa Mondays, I don't think I would have any incentive to come back anytime soon (although I suspect that the chances of me returning soon is very low even if I found it as good as SOS because of inconveniences like day and time of the week and difficulties with parking).

Around 12:45, I decided to cut my loss and leave - Mimi said she couldn't dance anymore with some girl stepping on her foot with sharp heels. Marina opted to stay in London overnight so it was just me and Mimi back to Cambridge. As we walked to the car, I half joked that I hope the car is still there and not clamped. The car was still there, but it was clamped. Total damage - £70 to get the clamp removed and £60 for parking violation. These guys are very efficient. After making the phone call to pay the penalty, we waited about 15-20 minutes before a crew came by to let us go. No more parking in resident only spot in Covent Garden - stick to single yellow lines on Charing Cross Road or one of the smaller streets around it. Live and learn.