Requiem for the Chapel

 

This post has been a long time coming. For over four years, I’ve meant to write it. But somehow I never got around to actually doing it. 

Now, I have to. Because it's regrettably my last chance to devote a blog to the Chapel, one of the world’s greatest pubs, and a little slice of heaven that—sadly—closed today in the wee small hours of the morning, after twenty-two years of attempting to quench Happy Valley’s collective thirst. 

As I finished my last pint there around 4:30am, my head and heart were bursting with memories of great friends, amazing food, and of course, the intellectual successes and failings of our Thursday night pub quiz team.

Tucked in the middle of Yik Yam Street in Happy Valley, only a few minutes' jaunt from my apartment, the Chapel—and it’s weird to have to use the past tense here—was a true community watering hole. It was the type of establishment they make sitcoms about, with an endearing, animated, eccentric cast of colorful regulars, chirpy staff and a true master chef calling the shots in the kitchen.  

The chef in question is named Chaky, an Indian who has ignited in me a true love for his country’s cuisine. Before my first Chapel visit, I had dabbled only slightly in Indian food. But Chaky’s cooking transformed me into more than a fervent admirer. From butter chicken to palak paneer, onion bhajees to lamb roganjosh, chicken pakoras to garlic naan, and anything lathered in a korma sauce or covered in mango chutney, the Chapel, i.e. Chaky, has taught me so much.

But every member of the staff was sensational. Almost always, I would walk in, find the table with my name on it, and sit down... and my Corona was on the way. Some nights, I didn’t even want that Corona, but I couldn’t help but appreciate that the barmaids knew me and acknowledged my entry.

The layout of the Chapel was extremely simple—a few tables, the bar itself surrounded by high stools and some booths along the side. It was never going to win any interior decorating awards, but that was the point. It felt like home.

It was all lorded over by Surjit, as good a publican as there ever was, I expect. Friendly, intelligent, warm and inviting, he made every person who entered his place feel like they were drinking in an extension of their living room. 

I don’t recall the exact date when I first set foot in the Chapel, but I know it was in 2010. Alex and Sonia had both been before, and suggested doing the Thursday night quiz one week. I can still remember Alex, impressed, mentioning that Surjit had remembered his and Sonia’s names when they stepped inside a few days earlier to reserve a table.

It didn’t take long before reservations became unnecessary—we had a rolling booking each and every Thursday, and our table was always full. When Alex’s sister Amy moved here, she became a mainstay of our team. And Silja, Rich, Iris, Gauthier and Courtney also regularly joined in during their stints in Hong Kong. And it was a natural spot to gather when we had guests in town, to show them a true slice of our expat life. 

One day, Amy's friend Jen brought a newcomer along, a fellow Yank named Eleni, who became not only a pillar of the team but one of my best Hong Kong pals. 

The quizmaster was also an American, named Glenn. A Pittsburgh native who once lived in Bryn Mawr, Glenn is as much a part of the Chapel for me as the rest of the staff, even though I suppose he wasn’t technically an employee.  

The quiz would typically begin around 9:50 or 10pm, with his booming voice announcing, “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Chapel’s Thursday evening quiz, beginning every Thursday at 9:30 sharp.” After explaining the rules, Glenn would kick things off, and the format of the quiz was generally—though not always—pretty standard.

The first round was called the Monkey Round, and usually consisted of questions that offered a 50/50 chance of success. “What is greater, the population of Haiti or Honduras?” might be question one. “Is 1,697 prime?” might be next. “Do they drive on the left hand or right hand side of the road in Namibia?” might finish off the eight-question round.

Next up was the Sports Round, where our perpetually feeble knowledge was on full display. (Yes, there were weeks when we scored zero points here.) 

After that, came the Music Round, where Glenn would play “parts of ten songs” for the crowd, requiring us to list the “name of each song and the name of each artist.” Often, but not always, there was a subtle theme here. For example, each song might have the name of an animal in its title. Or perhaps, each artist or group had a color in their name. One week—and if I recall correctly, it was the week of our first victory—each song's title contained the name of a different American state. (Oh, and for the record: you got a separate point for the name of each song and the name of each artist, so you could get ten 'song points' even if you got none of the artists right, and you could get ten 'artist points' even if you got none of the songs right.) 

Footloose was Glenn's eternal “sound check,” fooling first time quizzers into a frenzy of discussion and writing before his inimitable voice would enlighten, “Ladies and gentlemen, that was not song number one. That was a sound check. Here, for the first time, is song number one.” Of course, at our initial quiz, I fell for it; and then spent four years savoring the scene as scores of others made the same mistake.

All this was followed by the Picture Round, where a sheet of paper was distributed containing photographs of any number of people who had been in the news over the past seven days. Our job was to list them by name, and the international nature of the crowd—a microcosm of Hong Kong as a whole—made for a very global survey of the famous and the infamous. I remember Alex and I e-mailing back and forth during Thursday afternoons, scouring news sites to remind each other of potential Picture Round contenders. This round also featured the bonus anagram, a pet favorite of mine, where you had to re-arrange all of the letters in a given phrase to make new words that fit a common theme. 

The penultimate round was always the Wipe-Out Round, a grab bag of trivia that might ask for teams to identify airports by their three-letter codes, or attach directors to movies, or link capital cities to their respective countries. The catch, of course, was that a single wrong answer wiped you out, and you got zero points for the entire round. So you could leave an answer blank and be alright, but you could not write down an incorrect response.

The Final Round was a gallimaufry of general knowledge, running the gamut from ancient history to foreign language to religion or science or anything else. But believe me, the simple description I’m providing doesn’t fully capture the wit and charm, the humor and back-and-forth banter between quizmaster and quizees. You’ll just have to take my word for it that, win or lose, it was always a great Thursday night.

Of course, it was best to win. In addition to HK$200 off your bill, you got a round of shots, a bottle of champagne and "ceremonial possession" of the Keith Mounsey Memorial Trophy, meaning for the rest of the evening, you proudly displayed the award on your table. And I loved popping the champagne and having the whole team sign the cork, which was then added to the trophy's growing collection.

A running gag Glenn created was that any time our team won, he would begin his announcement with, "And in first place this evening, for the first time ever..." Our counterpoint would be for us to search through the trophy's cork soup to find all our previous victories, and line them up on our table. 

About to add a new cork to our lineup!

We had our fair share of second place finishes, too, resulting in a prize of a bottle of wine and HK$100 off the bill. Third place got you a HK$100 discount, while second-to-last won you a round of shooters.

A second place kind of a night

My priceless Chapel memories are too numerous to fully record. But a few really stick out.

One night, we were in a dismal position going into the last round but got a fourteen point boost when the ultimate question was to list the fifteen one-word Hitchcock titles. I still kick myself for forgetting Spellbound, but no other team got more than two or three correct, Glenn later told me! We came in second place that night—beating the usual champions who came in third—though it felt like a full victory.

For the next quiz, Jen couldn’t attend but challenged the rest of us not only to emerge victorious but also to get a photo triumphantly clutching the trophy while someone from the previous week's winning team cried in the background... Of course, we made it happen!

Crying in the Chapel

Once, in the summer of 2012, Glenn was out of town and Surjit asked me and Eleni if we wanted to host the event ourselves. We spent hours and hours putting it all together: coming up with questions, selecting our songs and closely following the week's news to construct our Picture Round. Following Glenn’s format but tweaking it in our own way, we wound up with a nifty little quiz, if I do say so myself. And I’ll never forget standing up there with Eleni in front of the regulars, barking out our questions and feeling the love and scorn of the crowd.

On my last quiz before I moved to Singapore, I got called up for a special round just for me, as Glenn asked the questions, and Surjit came over with penalty shots for each wrong answer. Perhaps through some clever score tallying, they made sure we came in first place that night.

Victory on my last quiz before heading to Singapore in 2012!

Back in town for Rugby Sevens in 2013, we paid a visit on the Thursday evening going into the big weekend, and wound up sticking around afterwards until daybreak! Amy even got to play barmaid at one point. True, I had to head straight to work from the bar, but it was a great start to a great weekend.

Having returned to Hong Kong for good, I looked forward to once again having the Chapel quiz as a Thursday night staple. Alas, while on the job hunt and with all my teammates (save for Eleni) vanished from Hong Kong, I scaled back my visits.

In August, again gainfully employed, I was delighted to begin visiting regularly once more, inviting friends to join to hopefully find aficionados and build up a new loyal team. In fact, the first day of my new job happened to be a Thursday, and was duly celebrated with a Chapel quiz. Not long after came the terrible news that the landlord was making it impossible for Surjit to renew his lease.

Landlords in this town can be true terrors and are notorious for demanding exorbitantly high rents. This article in the South China Morning Post on the closing of the Chapel helps paint the picture of exactly why Surjit could no longer keep the place running.

As Alex lamented when I informed him of the Chapel's fate, "That is so, so sad... I've kinda always imagined that whenever I come back to HK I'd be able to stop in at the Chapel for a quiz, pakoras and butter chicken..." It's truly the end of an era.

In a last stroke of great luck, my team managed to eke out a final victory in one last quiz a couple of weeks back. Surjit, seeing my utter delight, even allowed me to take the trophy—rarely allowed to leave the premises—home for a few nights. 

 One last victory on October 16th

I've savored my pints and curries over the last month and can't believe the Chapel is now gone. Of course, in my heart, and in the hearts of countless others, the place will live forever. So long, you wonderful pub, you, and thanks for the memories.