I love a kooky little trend. They always baffle me…who kicked it off? Why now? Why not?
A love of leather for Autumn/Winter (practical and with a hit of BDSM, thanks to 50 shades) is expected around this time of year as are florals for spring and safari prints for Cruise collections but these kooky trends that can take hold any time, any where are kind of like a last minute invite to the coolest party in town – you don’t really understand why but you’re definitely going because luckily for you, these trends tend to suit anyone. Cupcakes, bicycles, pop-up shop/restaurants/nailbar sound familiar?
And as one trend phazes out another
b o u n c e s
into the frame.
And the trend bouncing in this time is Table Tennis.
From The Book Club to 93 Feat East, Ping and now Bounce; ping pong is the coolest sports to be playing post Olympics, mainly because we’re all too lazy to try the pole vault and Mo Farrah seems to have that whole 10,000 metres thing sewn up.
Anyway – I headed over to Bounce a couple of weeks ago on a typically, horrendously wet Tuesday to meet a friend for a catch up. Located on High Holborn, Bounce is an easily found just a 5 minute walk from Chancery Lane Station.
Built on the site WHERE TABLE TENNIS WAS INVENTED (super spesh eh!) we were expecting big things when we headed downstairs into the bar and we were not disappointed. 17 tables to choose from, including one that was actually played on in the Olympics, Bounce is where the big boys go to play ping pong.
At the bottom of the first set of stairs you’ll find the main reception where you can purchase your table for the evening. Bookings for groups under 6 are on a first come first serve basis but above that you can book as many or as few tables as you like for £26 per hour. Each table has space around it for bag storage, spectating heckling, downing shots and limbering up in between turns.
Now, I don’t want to disappoint but on this particular eve we opted out of playing table tennis…I know, I know but after roughly 6 months of not seeing each other girl talk was first on the agenda, closely followed by cocktails, then food and then ping pong. So as you can see we really couldn’t fit any quality paddle-time in during this long overdue meet.
What there was time for though, was 50% in the restaurant. show.me.the.menu.
Which I was hoping would have a little more variety than it did, but this was sort of my fault..since it does say on the website they are predominantly a pizza restaurant and it wasn’t really their fault that I wasn’t in the mood for pizza that evening nor was it their fault that I hadn’t chosen to look at their menu on the website That said they do, do some nice sharing platters and picky bits that would keep you going through a gruelling ‘Round-the-World’ style ping-pong competition, especially when shit is gettin’ SRIUS.
And I know I said I wasn’t in the mood for pizza I did end up ordering one and the pizza I had (a classic bazil, tomato and mozzarella if you must know) was very tasty…as were the Ladies Delight No. 2 Cocktails and the Apples & Pears…and the Wiff Waff and the Ping Pong Show and Gin Lane Spritz…I’m kidding, it was a Tuesday after all!
Unfortunately there were a couple of issues with the waiter bringing us the wrong food…some sliced mozzarella as opposed to a mozzarella pizza (!!!!) and a few pieces of missing rocket from Bresola, ROCKET and parmesan starter but we were there on a soft launch night (the reason for the 50% off!) ahead of the actual official launch 3 days later. So we will give them the B of the D (benefit of the doubt) and hope they smooth things like this out as I can assume come 6pm on a Thursday and Friday evening, this place will be heaving.
With a dance-floor and private room for hire, complete with private DJ booth, 3 bespoke table tennis tables and even your own bespoke made paddle too Bounce really do deserve to be called the home of ping-pong. Sure to be a great social place to get together with work colleagues, friends, families (there’s no age restriction as far as I know), first dates, team-mates (for those of us taking it seriously enough to have organised one).
Have any of you visited Bounce yet? Or perhaps you prefer Ping? Let me know what you think or this whole table tennis craze!
