A few months ago I was thrilled to have received an invite from the hubbys cousin for her Hen party in London. She is getting married at the beginning of September so chose to have her Hen do on August 12th.

As it is a relative, this meant Mum, Baby Bear, my Sister in Law and niece would all be attending, as well as other family members, which we are pretty close with.

Now,  I had ordered a new dress in the sale from Lady V London, The Liliana. this was a total bargain as it was reduced from £60 to £20 and was simply beautiful.

It had arrived in time and so I decided that would be my outfit for the day. Mum, Baby Bear and I got a taxi to the train station and caught our train to London.

Train times

Of course we were going on a hen party so I was already prepared with alcoholic beverages and fresh strawberries; Malibu for Alexa, Gin for Mum and Vodka for me!

Gin for One

Vodka time

The journey went quickly and we hopped a tube to Oxford Circus. Angela and Twiglet were already there and we wandered down to The Slug and Lettuce just off of Regent Street to get a spot of lunch, cocktails and to await the arrival of everyone else.

Well, The Slug does 2-4-1 cocktails all day, every day. Well, it would be rude not to, right? We also decided to have a spot of lunch as we knew it was going to be a bit of a long day. Two family sharing platters and we were all happy as pigs in mud.

Thankfully the rest of the family arrived and we sat chatting, having more cocktails and waiting for the next part of the hen party; The Ice Bar.

All the Family

Now I had been to the venue twice before, once with the kids and once for a friends hen night so I knew where it was located. We left The Slug and Lettuce and made our way there. Whilst we waited for our time slot to start we were give the cocktail menus so we could start make decisions as to what we wanted.

The drinks menu had changed somewhat since the last time I had been there, so this was quite exciting. Eventually it was our turn to go in. Each person walks up to a staff member who throw a thermal cape with attached gloves and hood, over the top of your head. I just implored him not to shmush my hair!

Animal Cocktails

Going inside the Ice Bar itself, you really notice the cold hitting you. The capes do help, but I forgot how cold my feet got last time I went, and wore little ballet flats….Big Mistake.

Anyway, we joined the queue at the bar to get our drinks. The interior and the menu was totally different to my last visit, which was good. I decided to start off with a Crocopolitan; Absolut Citron Vodka, Pink Grapefruit Liqueur, Cranberry Juice, Lemon Juice and Orange Bitter. Very very delicious!

Crocopolitan Cocktail

Twiglet

We all took lots of group photographs and tried each others drinks. Dancing to the music that was playing loudly we had a literal blast!

Mum, The Hen and Sister

Family Group

Tentacles a Go-Go

Do NOT feed the Animals!

For my second cocktail I went with a Blue Baboon featuring Absolut Vodka, Blue Curacao, Lemonade,  and Lemon Juice, which was very blue and fizzy. It was, however also very lovely.

The tongue of the Blue Baboon

Sadly our time came to an end at the Ice Bar and we went out of the freezer, having the capes removed as we went. We congregated around in the bar and decided what to do next.

Warming up and Posing

As it was only around 4pm, we headed back to The Slug and Lettuce for more cocktails. The lovely niece was put in charge of taking some photographs for my blog. Sadly due to alcohol consumption neither she nor I could get a good shot……

Blurry silliness

So unflattering yet I love it!

Angelic little me!

This time I went with Long Island Ice Tea, and Baby Bear took everyone else’s order and went downstairs to get it.

Selfie Time

She is quite a fan of the Pornstar Martini, and they had a sharing one for £32.00. Now I couldn’t work out if that was good value or not. Until it arrived!

Mum and Sister of the Bride to Be

The biggest martini glass I have ever seen turned up, with a full bottle of Prosecco. There were a lot of smiling faces around the table.

HOW big?!?!?

The Hen and her Drink

We managed to chat for a couple of hours before everyone started to get a little peckish. Off to Chinatown we went! Again, I said I knew how to get there, and everyone trusted me. A very drunk non-London dwelling girl!

Family Portrait

Seriously though, I did actually know where Chinatown was and we set off. I have eaten at a fabulous restaurant there called the New Moon and as no-one knew where to go, I headed for there.

Michelle (the hen) stopped so many times on the way to have her photo taken with street performers and musicians. Then there was a bit of a dance to a guitarist and eventually we got to the New World.

The Hen in Chinatown

Dancing shoes

Whenever I have been to New World before it has been at lunchtime when they have Dim Sum trollies and you literally pick baskets off of the trolleys and pay a minimal amount for each. I thought that this would be ideal for us that evening.

When we got there though, we were told that the evening is menu service only. Oh well, at least I knew the food was good there.

We ordered a mountain of food. And I mean a mountain! Everything from Seaweed, to dumplings, to pork belly. Ribs, fried aubergine and even steak was place on the large revolving section of the table.

I honestly looked at it and thought we had over ordered massively. However I hadn’t taken into account there were eight starving and very tipsy people sat at the table. Slowly the food started to disappear.

Eventually we had pretty much demolished the lot and it was time to settle up. £160 for 8 people with drinks was not bad at all. Everyone said how fabulous it was and I earnt a lot of brownie points for my choice of Restaurant.

Sadly it was time for us to start going our separate ways. Half of the family hopped onto the tube at Tottenham Court Road and we opted to walk some of the food off by walking up Regent Street to Oxford Circus which is a direct line to St Pancras. We did have a little stop at the Lego Store though…. Mum wanted to get a picture.

Mum with two gorgeous creations

I have to admit, by the time I got to the tube station my feet were killing me!

What better to do then, than to hit the Searcy St Pancras Grand Restaurant and Champagne Bar where I knew the did amazing cocktails.

We had around 50 minutes to kill so ordered three cocktails, A Pornstar Martini, A Long Island Ice Tea and Mum went for a special one called something like “The Road to the Palace” although we had consumed quite a lot of alcohol at that point so I can’t be sure.

Long Island Ice Tea

Pornstar Martini

The bartender was lovely and proceeded to make the drinks. And we waited. And we waited. Now, the Martini and the Ice Tea were sat there. It was just Mum’s drink that was taking the time.

For those of you who haven’t seen “Love Actually” there is a scene where Alan Rickman tries to buy a gold necklace for a young lady he is about to embark on an affair with. Rowan Atkinson works in the shop and asks if he wants it gift wrapped.

Trying to be both quick and discrete so his wife doesn’t see, Alan makes the mistake of saying yes.

Queue Rowan bringing out boxes, cellophane, lavendar, rose petals, thistles and even more. Cinnamon sticks and ribbons are produced, to which Alan loses his cool.

If you are wondering where I am going with this, the cocktail was JUST like that.

We watched as the bartender took tweezers and added herbs and miniature pansies. If the placement was not quite right, he removed it and started over.

Literally this cocktail had more attention and pampering than I have had in months!

And it was to die for.

The Road to the Palace – or something like that!

Mum loved everything about it, and we relaxed for awhile before it was time to get the train home. Happy, full, tipsy and having had a lovely day.

Now all I can say is, Roll on the Wedding!!!