Dave was back in Astana this week, so a few of us met up for a bite to eat and a few drinks. Guns and Roses was the obvious choice for a destination, so around 10 of us turned up. Walton was the first to arrive (who sadly is leaving Kazakhstan soon 🙁 ), and I arrived a little later. I had been worried about being late, but it took a good couple of hours for all to turn up, so I didn’t feel so guilty. After a little confusion over tables (it is possible that we didn’t reserve one in advance, but an innocent smile (“You’ve lost our reservation? That is a shame, perhaps you could double check?” and the promise of a fair few ex-pats spending money soon found us with a table that had a reserved sign whipped away. It was a Friday night, so I was quite surprised to find that 90% of the beers on the menu weren’t available (leaving just the expensive ones), so I decided to try a Long Island Iced Tea cocktail again. This seems to have a fair few spirits and a kitchen sink thrown into it, and compared to the premium beers, not too badly priced. I’ve no idea whether it is seen as a girly drink or not, but once the inevitable straws are removed, it doesn’t look too bad. The taste (when mixed by most of the staff) is quite pleasant, and you barely notice the alcohol content. As ever, the food itself was very tasty – I did spend a good five minutes trying to find an alternative to my default selection of a Bacon Cheeseburger (having written of their Schnitzel previously), but in terms of encouraging descriptions and reasonable price, the burger once again was the winner.
The house band came on a couple of hours later, meaning conversations were once again impractical, but the music (although not new) was quite varied, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. It was good to see a pretty good cross-section of the ex-pat community represented, as quite often people seem to meet in small groups, without much a crossover. In the end I left earlier than expected, as I’d become sober, and we didn’t seem to be likely to heading on to Chocolate anytime soon; combined with the fact that I was going to drive Anna & Irina over to Chubary in the morning if I was legal to drive, so rather than spending more money on enough drinks to remove my soberness, and arriving home as the dawn sun rose, I said my farewells and ambled down Republic Ave. looking for a taxi.
Mar 12 2011
Good Night Out
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