Singular Girl and I chose Zentra's 3rd-Anniversary party as this weekend's entertainment, an invitation-only event that promised to deliver all of the swank and none of the wank, if you follow me. Zentra is one of a number of clubs in Chicago that go for a neo-Turkish-opium-den theme, mixing brushed steel fixtures with lots of draped satin. I've made this observation before, but I'll say it again: Ostentation is a marketing ploy here, which gives rise to an interesting paradox: If you try to portray your club as exclusive in order to draw more patronage, any success detracts from the very perception that caused it (the "nobody goes there, it's too crowded" effect), forcing clubs that take this path to forever seek better ways to give the appearance of lavish expense and special treatment. Witness clubs like White Star and Crobar, which charge a $20 cover... unless you put yourself on the online guest list first. The suckas pay the Jackson, and people who signed up online feel special because they're "on the list"... when all they really did was visit a web site. The club rewards faithul and the faithful are impressed.

Another tactic that these clubs use is the "reserved" table. Usually they're situated in a prominent spot, like right across from the bar or the dance floor, or if not, they have velvet ropes to signify their oh-so-exclusiveness. If you and your friends buy a bottle of liquor, such as a 750ml bottle of Absolut for $180, you all get to sit at the table, and everybody gets to look at you and wonder who you are that you can pay so much to sit down. The problem with places like this is that they're often filled with people who are after that behind-the-velvet-ropes feeling, but don't bring anything to the chic-table, so you get a lot of marketing/advertising types who can afford to blow tons of cash to feel like they're hanging with artist/rockstar types. No expense is spared on the swankiness of the place, for there are a lot of rich young folks in Chicago eager to spend their money to get that I'm-special feeling. I suspect it's the same all over, from the guys at the Elks lodge in Podunk Corner, Pennsyltucky to the most strung-out see-and-be-seen club in L.A.

But hey, my good time has never hinged upon the other clientele at the place where I'm having it, and let's face it- when it comes to bars, you get to pick pretention or desperation. Sometimes both, and in that rare special place that you found in your neighborhood, neither. All I cared about was that the well-dressed masses are likely to both look and smell better than the teeming ones, and the drinks were free, and I wouldn't trade the company for anything, so I had a blast.

Still, I've been to a few clubs that try to outdo each other with swank, and this one had them beat hands-down. The House of Blues V.I.P. room had Zentra beat in terms of the "you are the Almighty God" treatment by the staff but Zentra won through excess. I can't think of a floor-covering that beats live grass, which not only carries the Michael Valentine seal of approval, but also I must say makes an excellent floor for a bar or party setting due to its cushiony and muck-absorbing tendencies. Even the line where you stand to get in was carpeted in live grass, and it was cut in swoopy curves, not just laid down in square sod blocks. The lounge room, with its low draped ceiling and short-stooled hookah tables, was the most impressive ... though I doubt British-Colonial Era Turkish hookah lounges had grass floors. Hookahs are part of the shtick here, with body-painted hookah-girls allegedly circling the establishment, though I didn't see any tonight. In fact, I didn't see a single soul suck the fruit-flavored tobacco from the hookahs available at the tables, which was kinda disappointing. Come on, people, when in Turkey...

The buffet contained your usual bruschetta-and-asian-meatball stuff along with olives and grilled fruit to go along with the theme. I'd never had grilled fruit before but it fit my theory that any two foods or preparation methods, if tasty apart, are tasty together. The bartenders, men and women alike, wore nothing above the waist but body paint. The ceiling was covered in of thousands of helium balloons. Allegedly there were bellydancers and flame-eaters performing at some point in the evening. But I gotta say, the winning display of pointless expense was the live camel.

I was impressed. None of the other faux-Turkish lounges I'd been to had a live camel. In fact, I haven't been to ANY bar that had a live camel before!