FIAT cafe

Hola! ¿;Qué; Tal?. Onwards and upwards toward c/ Serrano, 197 where that road meets Conche Espina, to go to FIAT. The Blonde is meeting her girlfriends from work and Madrid-Uno is to be introduced to their bf’s where, it is assumed, we boys will talk business and football and they will talk about whatever it is women talk about – knitting patterns, children, how good their men are at rogering them,.. but I’m like totally guessing here. As our taxi draws up Madrid-Uno sees Porsches, Mercs, cabriolets of various models parked about. Drat! The Blonde has failed to warn him it’s a posh place, although now he understands why she was grinning when she said Madrid-Uno looked fine before we left the apartment. Hmmm. Now why is she playing tricks? Anyway, a couple of very large lagers in nice glass ‘balloons’ soon make me forget my holey Converse sneakers and talk with the boys is serious – interest rates, bond dealing, derivatives, corporate mergers and whether a 140 watts of Alpine stereo is strictly necessary in a VW Golf. We have grouped inside with a couple of lads holding on tenaciously to our slot at the bar and the other end of the circle congregating by the empty well of the dance-floor. A DJ will start playing later but at the moment this area is being used for dining. Inside it is humming and there is an even boy / girl ratio with a high grooming factor – I smell Armani, Hackett and gentlemen’s sporting jackets. There are tables outside as well and plenty of people are just milling about on the pavement too, meeting and greeting, lots of that continental cheek kissing. We really must get these people to stick to handshaking. Service is poor in that it’s slow and the staff are surly, although this obviously partly down to the crush – Fiat is a modern bar / restaurant for a primera hora de la noche, somewhere for the early part of the evening, and it’s very popular – clearly a place to see and be seen for the late-20s and 30 something yuppy crowd. The place closes at 2.00am but we move on at midnight. Madrid-Uno’s trainers forbid him entry to the next bar, but this place looks packed too, judging by the view through the windows looking down into the basement public area. Instead, we wander a bit further down to a bra called Dark Star – which shall be blogged later…promise…it’s just that Madrid-Uno needs time to collect his thoughts after a brief but, errr, interesting night in this particular club.