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The Drake Hotel

   10 February 2005, the wee hours

I heard that Abacus, of Esthero fame, was going to be playing at the Drake Hotel. I had never been to the the Drake Hotel, but I did have vague memories of it being some sort of crack house. The neighbourhood it is situated in isn’t the nicest of places. Apparently this all changed last year, when investors came and dumped a truck load of money into the hotel. Now the Drake Hotel is probalby one of the nicer places to stay in the city, and features one bitching lounge. I met Tyler in said lounge last night to hear Abacus play.

Drinks at the Drake are about the same as drinks anywhere else in Toronto. I paid 15 bucks for a pint of Guinness and a pint of Keat’s, and I paid 14 bucks for a Gin and Tonic and a Rye and Ginger. So they aren’t cheap, but they aren’t crazy expensive; not bad. The interior is quite impressive; I’d say the money they put into the place was well spent. Tyler informed me that when the place just opened it was quite hard to get into. This may still be the case on weekends. The night we were there the place was moderately busy. Most of the seats were taken, but there was plenty of standing room still.

The crowd at the Drake is something else. The bar was filled with a good mix of both younge and old people. There were several couples on dates, and the occasional group of friends hanging out. The waitresses were all attractive, as were a few of the patrons in the lounge.

Tyler with his sharp eyes noticed that sitting no more than 10 feet away from us was none other then Laura Bertram—you know, Amanda from Ready or Not. Admittedly, this isn’t as cool as seeing Sarah Polley at a bar, but it’s something. She was looking pretty good, the guys she was with were not. I’m sure they might have been nice guys, but they really looked like they didn’t belong sitting next to her. I suppose that’s what people think when they see me standing next to Shima.

Seeing Amanda from Ready or Not was a bit strange, but there were stranger things to be seen at the Drake. These two women were taking turns dancing with this brown dude that looked vaguely like my friend Neel. Near the start of the night we saw this brown guy dancing with a reasonably attractive blonde woman. In some parts of the world she might be called a cougar (an older woman on the prowl for a younger man). I didn’t think she looked that old, but she was definitely older then the boy she was dancing with. When I say dancing, I don’t mean in any sort of classy sense of the word. The Drake doesn’t have a dance floor, and no one was dancing save the two of them. They looked very out of place molesting each other on the non-existent dance floor. I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back the blonde had been replaced by an Asian girl. I soon realized the two women were together when the Blonde came back and replaced the Asian chick. They alternated like this for quite some time. The brown dude seemed to be enjoying himself.

Eventually a black dude with a samurai hair cut came in. He was wearing white jeans and a sweat shirt. I thought he looked a bit ridiculous, as did Tyler. Nevertheless, the aforementioned women and the brown dude decided to come over and make friends. When Tyler and I left the four of them were chatting it up.

It was an interesting night out; I’ll have to make it a point to go back to the Drake.

Life | Restaurants and Bars