Mardi Café

Well, perhaps ironically I didn't go to Mardi Café last night and I'm still going to write about it this morning. Reasons are various and mainly have to do with my last presentation of the year today and an Art History exam (BTW- I have let my art history teacher know about my situation. She was just very pleased I was so open and hoped I would have a good visit with my cousin. Literature is later today). Also, I spent all my going out time in the sun in beautiful 19 degree Celsius weather.

All the same, Mardi Café is a really good experience for the CIDEF student. It is an activity to encourage the mixing and mingling of foreigners and locals to share culture and language over a pint of beer. Incredibly fun and you can expect jumping from one language to another at anytime making it a real exercise of the brain as well. I came up with a list of the bars that tend to be on the Mardi Café list and their different personalities as there is always a bar to suit your mood.

Snooker’s

Directly perpendicular to la gare this is also the Mardi Café bar where you’re most likely to meet non-student locals. It tends to be a favorite for male 20- and 30-somethings who love to watch sports on the huge flat screen TVs. A lively place, if you’re looking to spending quality time with the people with you then you’re best avoiding it. Game night (almost every night) doesn’t leave much room).

Best place to…watch the game with buds, get a Cointreaupolitan, play pool, meet locals

Worst place to…pay for cocktails (said Cointreaupolitan is usually 12 euros…ouch), bring a crowd

Falstaff

La Rue Bressiny’s interpretation of a British pub resembles a college bar but when you have so many American fans that leave tokens of their home universities behind, it is bound to happen. The bartenders obviously love it and also love speaking English. Make really good friends with them and they’ll play your favorite music as soon as they see you in the bar.

This could easily be called the party bar as it attracts the most Anglophones and probably hence the most noise. A good way to jump into a Falstaff evening is to first going to the Kebap, T’Chips, right next door where they exclusively sell “The Falstaff sandwich,” which usually tends to be on special every Tuesday conveniently enough.

Best place to…grab a beer and dance, leave your Alma Mater’s mark

Worst place…to exclusively drink all night because this can be the most expensive bar as well, expect hygiene

K' Lypso

This was the bar I went to for my first Mardi Café. It can be a more intimate atmosphere if you keep to the front. However, if you just want to party already, head to the back where there’s the dance floor. It is hard to choose between Falstaff and K’Lypso whether on or the other if better for dancing. Better to let that be a personal decision.

Again, the bartenders like Anglophones. The two main one is an older man and his much younger, Irish-accented, English speaking employee. Rumor has it that if the Irish-accented bartender likes you and you order in English, he’ll give you a price reduction on your drink. He really loves American girls. I’ll stop there. Here is where one can usually find a 2 euro pint of beer on Tuesdays. It is just too hard to find anything cheaper than that. If you’re a lightweight like me, that ought to be enough to get your cheeks toasty for the whole night and keep you smiling the whole time through. Unless you’re craving one bad, I’d stay away from the cocktail menu. It is just not this bars specialty and you pay more than what a mediocre cocktail is worth.

Best place to…dance, mingle, find some of the cheapest beer to be found in a bar, flirt with an Irish-accented French man

Worst place to…get a cocktail

Soft

I saved my favorite for last. There has been no intention for Soft to be dance-friendly or TV-friendly so be there to just drink and chat. There is no group size limit thanks to the probably non-intentional but ingenious layout of the place. The backroom can be dominated by just one group of dozens of people and throughout the bar are side rooms, an upstairs, booths, etc. to make the ideal place for a group or just two people.

Soft’s strength is their cocktails and they’re always coming up with new ones. It is the perfect place to start your cocktail experiences especially if you stick to keeping on the cheap side, as their most creative cocktails are almost always on Mardi Café special.

They also sell Pringles and sausages here, which can seem random…until you’ve had something to drink. Once, two of my CIDEF friends, Tyler, future Ex-Pat and French/Russian translator, and Mitchell, the angry Canadian, had two pints and soon started trying to convince me that what we all needed was some sausage and chips. It was actually pretty funny as they were incredibly confused as to why they wanted the sausage and chips to badly but there we go. Product placement? Something in the beer? Little bit of both? Ah, well.

Best place to…get a cocktail, get coffee in the afternoon on a rainy day (1 euro petit cafés!), bring a crowd, hide away in one of the many nooks and corners, find clean-ish bathrooms

Worst place to…Dance, “really party”