Corner Bistro. I still heart you.

Guess what. I'm a slacker. I haven't been writing in a while. Of course, this does not mean I have not been eating in a while. I'm also not enough of a slacker that I won't traverse manhattan for a burger and/or a grilled cheese in the wee hours of the morning.

OK OK so the plan was to meet up with some friends at a party in Chelsea. We made an effort! There was a firetruck and an ambulance outside the bar. After briefly (read: 13.7 seconds), entertaining the idea of waiting, the shrill of the girl waiting in line reminds me that New York City is sandwiched carefully between Joisey and Lon Guyland. I'm out. I'm out faster than Paulie D can throw up a fist pump for that girl's fake tan.

So, it's my civic duty as a New Yorker to remove my visiting friend from the situation and make sure he'll make it through the long night without starvation or sobriety. In a moment of unbridled nostalgia and proximity to the 123 line, we head to Corner Bistro [sidenote: check out that website. how ghetto is that? it has to be good].

To be fair, the best time to go here is probably the afternoon on a weekday. Having a job is soooooorta prohibitory to this but lucky for us, it's saturday night and the line is not too ridiculous. No tables open when we got there and even though a financial district-looking dude offered to trade my friend a seat for $5 or a date with me, we manage to find a *free* seat at the bar. Plus $5 = two beers and that guy wasn't even cute. The bar is cute though, as it's almost 100 years old--a sagging-at-the-middle mahogany throwback to tavern awesomeness of old.


Two minutes later, $2.50 McSorley's in hand, I have forgotten about the Garden State and the fact that Sarah Palin almost became vice president of the country I live in 15 months ago. Hurray! Menu is small and cheap. We get a grilled cheese, which is obviously pretty standard and a burger. Both are solid and salty and delicious. I miss out on most of the burger since I keep company with wolves, but it's OK. For me, bread is its own food group and the bun is unimpressive...the rare-side-of-medium-rare burger outlasts the bun anyway, and it's not really a problem. I manage to steal a few bites before it's gone. Another round of beer and we're good for $25.

(---> this is what you get for $6.50 in Manhattan. on a weekend night. for real. can you say, "best idea ever"?)

My roommate Da actually waited in line to get into that bar in Chelsea...I'm pretty sure he got the short end of the stick though (by that I mean the end of the stick that doesn't have a grilled cheese attached to it). Plus, I got to listen to Motown and hear the (unusually young) bartender hassle my drunk friend for ordering fries two times in 3 minutes.

Somehow Corner Bistro has managed to age pretty well. If you don't have a neighborhood bar yourself, you might even consider moving to greenwich just to be nearby...but don't worry, you'll snap out of it when you remember that there is nary a cab (back to new jersey?) in a 15-block radius there and reconsider. But it's a relic and you should go.