Tantric Bar & May Wong’s Cafe

You cannot not know Tantric if you have pink friends. This is an institution and always fun to hit the other gay bars around the area after that.
Drinks are strong and cheap (by sg bar standard anyway). An awesome night of gay pub crawl starts here!

I’ve been coming here for years — and will be for years to come!
Great drinks, noisy atmosphere, the place to be seen and see, and it could serve almost any social purposes — whether you’re coming in a group, on a 1-​on-​1 date, a small group of friends, alone (with the intention of going home with someone or alone or to meet new people, etc)… there’s so much you can do here!
A recent improvement — the sitting area in the terrace is no longer for smokers (you have to be on the balcony now — but since the fans blow the smoke over the seats it doesn’t make much of a difference, really) — but still not really comfortable for me unless I have a thirst to be there (and that comes along very seldom), so DYMK or Backstage will be a better bet if you want a comfortable bar — but Tantric is gay-​city!

One of the oldest gay bars in the Gay Stretch, I’ve been coming here for. a decade? It hasn’t changed very much. It’s still full of white boys and the azn boys who love them. But the $ 10 drinks really help, no matter your gender — or orientation.
The shophouse it’s in is quite homey, if you can indeed call a gay bar homey. Most nights it’s the same: a place you go to repeatedly if you’re a regular. On special nights like on Pink Dot nights, it’s packed silly to the brim.
One of the standards. Can’t recommend it excessively, can’t say anything too bad about it either.

Tantric is a bar that I go to when i want to get drunk for cheap. At $ 10 for a double shot, it’s a bar that one never leaves sober. The crowd is spotty/​awesome (depending on your taste) — you’ll find a lot of white guys hanging out there, and a lot of Asian boys who like white boys, and the occasional straight person helplessly wandering around the bar, wondering what’s going on. No matter what your taste, at $ 10 a drink, you’ll find that things look pleasant after awhile.
The bar itself is actually spread over 2 stories with an outdoor courtyard. The upstairs is decorated in a slight Shanghai theme, with posters of an old Chinese movie star called May Wong (yeah, no idea who she is either) covering most of the walls. There are really comfortable couches on the 2^nd floor, though they tend to be really popular, so be prepared to fight it out with queens for a seat. The downstairs has way more space, and occasionally turns into a dance floor, depending on the time of the night, and the number of drinks that people have had. It tends to have a feeling of a meat market though at times, and people might get a bit touchy as you wind your way through the crowd to the toilets at the back of the bar. Whether that’s good or bad, again, depends on your taste (:

I usually go to tantric to get drunk, then head over to Play so that it doesn’t seem so bad. Also because I like to think I’m an awesome faghag. The boys love me, I love the boys!
But in all honesty Tantric is really pretty cool. There are not many places left in Singapore where you can get strong, potent drinks for $ 10 or maybe even less. As a girl, sometimes it is lovely to hang at a place where you can wear next to nothing and no one will even look at you. Isn’t that very first world, progressive and empowering? Service is always fantastic– the staff are cherry and efficient. I especially like the ambience upstairs– theres always some random music playing into the background but nothing too load, the couches are super fantastic and non sticky (who cares they might be damn dirty, its comfortable) and its gets just the right amount of buzz for you to feel happz but still be able to carry on with a conversation.
It would be great if there were separate male and female cubicles, because sometimes I really have to pee (especially when I drink) but then there might be some guy shitting inside :(. But usually its not a problem, and the people queuing up for the toilet are all super chill about things like that. If you’re planning to pay by card, do note that unlike other places, here there is a min charge of $ 20 before you can do so.

Two-​storey bar for the boys, with outdoor seating and a very laid-​back vibe. This establishment has been around for the longest time and is just opposite Taboo (gay club), so a weekend night usually entails drinks at Tantric before hopping over to Taboo or Play. The crowd can get pretty rowdy and it is often jam-​packed on weekend nights.
The upstairs has plush couches and the ground floor tends to be more crowded and crazy and there’s standing only unless you are sitting outside.
The pros about this place:
— STRONG drinks for cheap prices ($ 10 nett for a strong vodka tonic)
— Good looking guys
— I like the music: it’s a lot of pop, top-​40s and dance tunes
— Easy to meet people
Cons:
— Slightly grotty
— Can get way too crowded, and crowd can be a little obnoxious sometimes