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Me

"Get your act together, JB!"

In the process of transferring this to a tumblr site...

:-p

Crush Wine & Spirits gives me free wine. All. The. Time.

Crush Wine and Spirts

Thursday, January 21st tasting with their girl Liz Willette. 

I *think* this is the line up and, in that case, i *think* i want to go...

2006 Chave St-Joseph Offerus
From the master of Hermitage, Chave's Offerus is made in a polished and exacting style with spice, herbs, olives and plenty of cherry fruit.
2006 Lucie & Lignier Lignier Bourgogne Rouge
The Lignier family is known for traditional winemaking that acknowledges the importance of both ripe, layered fruit, and complex notes of earth, game, spice and minerality.
2006 Martray Brouilly Les Feuillees
Martray's Brouilly delivers rich dark cherry fruits with granite inflected minerality. Delicious.
2007 Chave Mon Coeur
A perennial favorite in the CdR department. Herbs, spice and dark fruits are all in play with a very well balanced wine.

They are located @ 153 E 57th St New York, NY 10022. I sorta love them. 

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.

Thai Cafe: Greenpoint, BK

Thai Cafe in Greenpoint has absolutely my favorite thai iced tea in the city. THE BEST, hands down (no, Mom, that's not an alcoholic drink...don't worry, my liver is fine).

This place is awesome. cheap. and good. Check out their menu.

Things I love: service is so friendly. Last time I ordered green curry, extra spicy. They did a serious job making me the spiciest curry I've ever eaten and half-way through my lunch, my waitress checked on me because it was "too spicy even for [her]." Points for making me what I asked for and then making sure my mouth wasn't on fire when i got it. I like.

Thai Cafe is a cute space with a small open kitchen, concrete floors, paintings on the walls and kooky light fixtures.

It's cash only, but you won't need much. They have a kick ass pad thai ($7.50-9.50) green papaya salad ($4) (on right in picture next to spicy squid salad), and the curries are really well balanced (and spicy, if you so desire) (avg. $8). If you don't live in Brooklyn, it's probably a pain to get to, involving @ least 1 transfer to the G or a long walk from Queens but this is a hidden treasure for thai food lovers.

Hudson Bar @ the Hudson New York Hotel

(SSSSSh...The Doors to the Hudson Hotel are totally unlabeled, but it looks like this, k?)

A trip to the (other) city...the hudson bar @ the hudson new york hotel @ 356 West 58th Street...

Well this bar certainly is beautiful. Luminescent glass floors light the indoor space, the (rather low hanging) ceiling was hand painted, Sistine Chapel style, by the artist Francesco Clemente. And, although, I was not willing to brave the bitter cold in a dress, tights and heels to verify this, the bar is rumored to have one of the nicest rooftop gardens in the city. Maybe in a couple of months, New York, when it's above freezing or my blood thickens a little bit after moving back to the Northeast.

Despite the obvious coolness of the space, there are some other pros. It's a great people watching spot. Though, it might be running out of it's "still cool" factor, it's still enough of a hot spot to be picky with clientele. That said, and it could have just been the particular night, they love them some cougars. Men working the door, if a good looking lady with bee-stung lips and too-tight $300 jeans wanders in with a 22 year-old up-and-coming actor type dude....just say no. But then again, i get a kick out of watching these could-be Woody Allen movies unfold in front of me on a Friday night.

CONS: The music is good but loud. If you want to talk to anyone (friends/date/aforementioned 22 year olds, try the Library -- their other, smaller, quiter space. I've also heard that, sometimes, bouncers forget that it's not got the clout it once had and can be a teensy bit rude @ the door but I didn't have any trouble getting in. Wear a nice dress or bring a girl in a nice dress and I think you're good to go...