Not so much a restaurant, more a way of life...

I kept meaning to post something about last Wednesday evening, but never got round to it. This is unashamedly recycled from what I posted on the Guardian talkboard:

Last week, we went to a traditional Romanian restaurant for someone's birthday. We were asked to remove jackets at the door as apparently people are much prone to stealing the (antique) cutlery.

The main room is huge and square, with a small slightly sunken dance floor in the middle. The menu was fairly esoteric (two colleagues had bear - one smoked, one sausages) and only in Romanian (a language in which carp is rendered crap, to my delight). When the food arrived, each waiter was carrying a flaming torch in one hand and a serving platter in the other. It was ACE.

Then the Entertainment! Oh joy. The MC was a very large Hyacinth-Bucket-Style lady in a sequinned long dress and, bizarrely, wide-brimmed Ascot-style hat. The first act was the Famous and magnificently-moustached Gipsy Accordionist, Mr Viorel Fundament (click on the link http://www.pixton.org/TomsMusiciansGalleryOne.html for a picture of him - he looks like Borat's stouter, more ingratiating brother). He was followed by some very scantily-clad ladies tangoing and cha-cha-cha-ing with some of the waiters: then a very good saxophonist, then some Gipsy Singing. The coup de grace was an octogenarian singing karaoke Tom Jones hits, with a little help from us when he got to Delilah. To bed very late and fairly drunk, but it was SO worth it.