Welcome Valhalla!

So as promised I checked out Valhalla last night. The first thing I have to say is, what a step up from Starters & More?! Now don’t get me wrong, I have loads of happy pub-hopping memories from there (one which involved a yeager bomb and another on a fateful night where my very lovely (albeit slightly hyper) jive-partner spun me around so hard that I lost my balance and nearly cracked my skull open on the step leading up to the bar! (He later bought me a helmet as a joke!) Good times.

Anyway Valhalla has several things going for it:

1. South Mumbai has very few lounges to speak of. This could be the new Henry Thams perfectly located at Eros, Churchgate
2. There’s an upstairs, outside smoking section where you can take your drinks (woohoo!)
3. The bartenders are friendly and the tapas is yummilicious (especially those little pieces of pineapple wrapped in ham. I’d like some more please!)
4. Also the open bar party hosted by Shamita Singha had Redbull which is always a good thing.

So Lets take a moment and talk about this throne. It kinda feels like that elephant in the room (that everybody wants to ride!) Almost every member of the glitterati gave it whirl (and a pose) for paparazzi and friends while others lounged, chatted, giggled, gossiped and guzzled.

I’ll get the whole PR set of pix in a while but here are mine. I missed Kelly Dorji because he was too busy taking a picture of Manasi Scott on that chair! (Love her hair by the way.)

Manasi Scott

So the usual suspects (as I Twittered) were Ash Chandler & Junelia Aguira, Shveta Salve, Kelly Dorji, Manasi Scott, sister act Mashoom & Shamita Singha,TC & Nathalie Ressencourt De Sousa (who are hosting singles night at Cafe Goa tonight incidentally), Kim Jagtiani (who had just come from a gig, hence the hat), Anurag Kashyup, Delna Poonawala, Nisha & Adam Bedi, Candice Pinto, Abhishek Kapoor, Apeksha & Sumeet Chopra (happy mommy-to-be) Arshiya Eappen and Amrit Maghera doing her After Hours deal.

Nisha Bedi & Amrit Maghera

Kim Jagtiani

Mashoom & Shamita Singha

Nisha & Adam Bedi

The DJ

Delna Poonawala and Manasi Scott

Arshiya Eappen (centre) & Apeksha Chopra (right)

Apeksha Chopra

So would you believe Apeksha Chopra (with a body like that) as TWO children?! Also had a fun chat with Nisha Harale Bedi on the smoking terrace (she’s so fun btw and complimented me for being ballsy on my blog heehee) she revealed that at her beach wedding Goa Candice Pinto caught the bouquet (even though Aanchal Kumar was vying for it!) Candice also confessed that she didn’t know about the white wedding dress code so showed up in rainbow hues and was super embarrassed!

Candice Pinto and Nisha Bedi

The high-profile kebab krew

Romil RatraAkanksha Nanda with Gayatri Khanna

Akanksha Nanda with Gayatri Khanna

Last week there was another high-profile ladies-only luncheon (along the lines of the one thrown by Harpers Bazaar) at Kebab Korner, InterContinental Marine Drive to launch their new healthy menu & decor hosted by Gayatri Khanna and (in this case ladies man!) Romil Ratra (GM, InterContinental Marine Drive.)

The afternoon was a quintessential mix of food & fashion (just how the the rich and restless like it!)

Anaita Shroff Adajania

Jyoti Gwalani and Sangeeta Khanna

Mona Narang and Priya Aila

Sonali Sachdev and Mahbanoo Kotwal

Vanita Bhandari, Nayantara Thacker & Parizad Kolah Marshall

Pratima Bhatia with Naaz Zaveri

Rosa Catalano with Bandana Tewari

Spotted: Akanksha Nanda, Amrita D, Rosa Catalano, Naaz Zaveri; sipping on a sweet paan martini (how bourgeois, n’est pas?), Arti Surendranath (who I spotted last Sunday at East, my favorite pan-asian restaurant at Kemps Corner, Mumbai having an intimate dinner with hubby Kailash and a friend, but for some reason I felt weird invading her privacy so didn’t take a picture, my bad.) Bandana Tewari, Sangeeta Khanna, Shaheen Abbas, Anita Vaswani, Priya Ailawadi, Parizad Kolah Marshall, Nayantara Thacker, Anaita Shroff Adajania, soon-to-be-mum Arshiya Eappen, Nisha JamVwal, Dolly Thakore, Roopa Vohra, Vanita Bhandari, Shibani Agarwal, Neena Agarwal, Sabina Chopra, Dimple Roy, Pratima Bhatia, Mona Narang, Jyoti Gwalani, Priya Ailwadi, Kanchan Kundanmal, Devika Khanna, Bunty Khanna and Ivana Perovic (love the shoes, love the waist coat and the waist-size!)

Arti Surendranath, Ivana Perovic and Kanchan Kundanmal

Amrita D., Anita Vaswani and Arshiya Eappen

Roopa Vohra and Dolly Thakore

Shaheen Abbas with Nisha JamVwal

Quite the attendance roster of the well-heeled ladies of leisure dontchya think? HHC waiting for your fashion review!