
The XXX wall
There is one thing that all of my close friends have in common. They are fabulous people – gifted people even and when my friends meet my other friends the common remark is “Your friends are really nice!” It’s absolutely true, I hand pick all of them and they are the brightest and sweetest cherries in the box. One of them is The Second Wife who upon learning that it was my birthday put her hand up to organise a food trivia night for my birthday. Yes any invitee to a birthday party or Halloween or even dinner at our house will know that after the food and drinks are eaten, games are aplenty whether it be Murder in The Dark for Halloween, Sardines for Christmas or simply Charades for after a dinner party.

I racked my brain trying to think of places to hold my birthday. I wanted it to be central to everyone to get to and when I saw LL Wine and Dine’s website and the magical words “Private Room” coupled with the fact that there wasn’t a minimum spend to have the room I looked further. The private room was all red which was very Twin Peaks-I could easily imagine the dwarf and giant hanging out there (which really was my prerequisite for choosing a room). Plus it was also a former adult bookstore so what’s not to intrigue? But beyond that, the building has such a fascinating history that it was the perfect choice for a birthday.

See that little room up there? That’s where they discovered the p*rn stash!
The front of the restaurant was originally where the adult book store sat but in the back, through one of the 650kg secret steel hydraulic doors was a steel walled room gambling establishment and swingers room where the real action happened. It took 2 weeks to strip all of the steel out once they moved in. Whilst they knew of it’s provenance as an adult book store, the owners didn’t realise what else lay hidden until it came to renovating it. The unexpected prize? A steel fronted secret attic space hiding bags and bags of XXX magazines and tapes!

Where the hydraulic door would have slid back to lead patrons into the inner sanctum aka the gambling club and swingers club
In fact the room that we have booked has some hooks from the ceiling that were used to suspend swings and harnesses from and plastered and painted over is the door that leads to the tank stream underground passageway where patrons could slip out unnoticed. The police used to watch the place with interest from the front where they would see men disappear into the store but never come out and it was through these secret doorways that patrons would leave. It’s a modern day maze a la Alice (admittedly though, a children’s book wouldn’t be set in Kings Cross). And you know I wouldn’t choose just anywhere to have a birthday right? 


Where the owner of the adult book store would have sat in the booth looking out onto the store
So with the venue decided we chose the Sapphire $50 banquet menu so that it wouldn’t be too expensive for everyone and put down the $10 per person deposit. I have a slight obsession with the TV series Twin Peaks and David Lynch and it was only when we sent out the invitations that I realised how few of my friends had seen the series. Ah well! After sending off the guest list to the The Second Wife, she and her husband Gravy Beard weaved their magic from there and put together a list of questions including trivia questions and blind tastings. People would split up into teams of three and the prize? Well that’s a secret! 

I decided this year as it was so close to Mother’s Day and I was busy baking for that that I wouldn’t make my own cake. So I called upon Buppa from Buppa’s Bakehouse to make it for me. The Bakehouse has sadly now closed but I knew that she was doing private orders and I knew that she would think up something quirky and fun with a Twin Peaks theme.

The table of vegetables
Mr NQN and I arrived that evening at 7:30pm. I do love dining out in this area but parking is a beast so we had to cab it (warning for drivers, there is only one parking station for the whole Potts Point/Kings Cross area and scarce 1 hour parking everywhere!). We walk downstairs to the private area. It’s dark, in fact very dark so please excuse the shots as we were in the darkest part of the restaurant right down at the bottom with just two lamps lighting up the whole area and we forgot to bring the flash. Mr NQN set up a time lapse camera that would take a photo of the room every 10 seconds and The Second Wife set up her little table of unusual vegetables.

Prawn and pork wontons
The staff that were looking after us introduced themselves and asked us what order we would like things to do done in and we decided to start on the entrees and then have the games before and after the mains. The food started to come out quickly and we started with bowls of delicious slippery prawn and pork wontons that sit deep in a bowl filled with chilli oil and aged dark vinegar sauce, topped with thin slices of silk egg which is like a thin scrambled egg, pickled mustard and shallots. The wontons are good with a flavoursome filling and a smooth, slippery thin pastry. Miss America leans over and confesses “Do you know I haven’t touched a dumpling since our dumpling escapade?”

LL san choy bau
This was many of our favourite-the san choy bau here is quite different from the ones that you may find with pieces of duck and water chestnut. This one is filled with minced chicken with a spicy lime dressing and it has toasted pine nuts and croutons to give it an even greater crunch to match the crunchy iceberg lettuce.

Crispy tofu
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