New York Restaurants

is this like, drinking in the dorm or some kind of upscale thing?

i go to hotel delmano all the time case a friend of mine works there so you know free drinks

i would say those places the drinks are really yummy the steez is wack and the whole situation is overpriced - so 1 out of a possible 3 - theyre good if you just want to have a really well made drink or two i guess

college speakeasy basically just means he and a couple friends set up a bar in their house--they were a bunch of super-fastidious borderline-ocd x-country runners so everything was done very professionally, beautiful drinks, nice space, i thot it was way fun... i think he would probably be into the steez which is mostly like... throwback prohibition-era rite? dunno just lookin for something to do in manhattan

i hear the rub n tug above black & white got shut down :(

i bet jhoshea will jerk u off for a couple bucks

whoa max i think we have a bord for yr sex dreams now

gotta pay for free shantytown wireless somehow dude

hav u forgotten abt my nila wafer and herbal remedies boutique

o btw i went to the restaurant in my building tonight and they gave me a dessert that included fresh baked nila wafers

fresh baked!? woah.

yesss

Milk & Honey's definitely great if you can get in; I LOVE Pegu Club... and anyone can get in there. Angel Share in the East Village is often mentioned in this company, though I don't like it as much as M&H or Pegu. East Side Company on Essex St. is another bar of this ilk - it's fun, but their stock is somewhat smallish. The West Village has Employees Only, which I've never been to. The NYT just did a story on a wave of new bars like this - check it out in the Sunday edition.

And now Brooklyn has its own retro cocktail bars - places such as Weatherup on Vanderbilt Ave. and Quarter on 5th Ave. in Greenwood Heights; both recommended.

milk and honey i think is the only bar ive ever been kicked out of - that was many years ago

weatherup is really quite nice inside they dont have hendricks cause why tho?

as far as brooklyn the aforementioned hotel delmano in williamsburg and the hideout in ft greene too

The basic idea here (for the curious) is classic cocktails, made slowly, with classic recipes, fresh ingredients, top-shelf liquor etc. Usually these places try to cultivate an ambience of old-fashioned gentility, though that doesn't always work out.

For example, Pegu Club has not just aged rum, but a whole shelf of differently aged rums. Quarter in Brooklyn has a rack full of different kinds of bitters. It's all about sweating the details.

command-f vests

hahaha - why did you get kicked out of m&h? were you starfucking? did you approach a lady? swear loudly?

drinks i had at weather up were great, but service was up and down. one bartender was awesome, really friendly and enthusiastic, and one was a total douche. i'm sure there are tons of rude, annoying customers who demand martinis with vodka and don't know what a pimm's cup is, but it's not cool to have that as your default assumption and treat everyone with according condescension.

pegu, pdt, death & co, milk & honey? are they good/worth it?

imo they're worth it to go early for one drink and then head somewhere else where drinks aren't 16 bucks a pop

just fyi at all of these places except pegu you generally have to call ahead. never been to death & co. cause the time I stopped by it was all "do you have a reservation"? I've gotten in to pdt w/o calling but it was at like midnight on a tuesday

employees only is okay right when it opens at 5 or 6 or whatever but when dinnertime rolls around it gets nasty crowded really fast

I've been to weather up twice. On one night we definitely noticed a difference between the quality of drinks from two bartenders, though it may have been that the second guy was super swamped. That place is empty early on and empties out later on but around midnight is packed and they're trying to knock out these "fancy" drinks. Anyway, I love the dark and stormy and the weird cynar one.

yeah. it's hard to turn out drinks at a reasonable pace when you have to chip the ice from a block by hand and there are more than 5 people in the bar.

^Why is new york so much better at this. London yesterday afternoon looking for a classy drink in soho and towards home, it just isn't possible. (OK so the Hotel bars are good, big props to the Artesian Langham the weekend before, their Qunice sour a definite great and Claridges the weekend before that). But can freuds really be the only place, non-members you can get a non-pint at on a sunday afternoon east of regent's st.

isn't the london branch of m&h open to non-members until some point in the late evening?

also near Employees Only in the Village there's Little Branch which I think is another place run by the M&H people

closed on sundays in London, but yes can go in as a non-member till 7pm.

xpost

11pm

I go to Little Branch a lot. You should go right after it opens or else it is crowded and irritating. The drinks are really good and they're actually only $12 which considering mixed drinks at some crappy bar will often be $8-$10 anyway I'd rather just get a well-made drink that uses quality liquors. I also like getting 'bartender's choice' at Little Branch because it's a good way to discover new drinks. Last time I got a Trinidad Mojito which is way better than a lame boring old mojito because it's got something red in it--maybe grenadine. That same night I saw a small mouse walking around the floor of the place. I'll still go back.

wow you guys drink way fancier shit than i do. but i have really desired to go have nice cocktails lately and can't find anyone willing to spend the $. people would rather get wasted on crap than just leisurely enjoy a few nicer drinks. i do not understand this.

it's the economy.

I don't like nice drinks and I don't like nice places.

i understand where you're coming from, t, but i've really cut back on my going-out budget and the price difference between a proper cocktail bar and my favorite local bar is pretty steep. based on recent experience: 3 drinks at the latter = approx. $18 - 20 with tip (and they'll make me a decent manhattan). 3 drinks at the former = approx. $40-45 with tip. i love the whole fancy cocktail ritual, but at this point... like dan says, it's the economy.

yeah i guess i'm thinking more of people who want to go sit and drink beers and do shots for hours and spend the same as or more than what you'd spend on one or two really nice drinks. i guess i'm less about drinking and more about the experience right now. but i definitely understand economic constraints!!

I always feel a little like D'Angelo Barksdale in the expensive restaurant when I go to nice places.

hay so what did people think of no 7? i ate there on sunday - had the lamb app cod entree and miso banana desert - totally bangin!

i like what theyre trying to do w/the creative but not flashy menu

Chiming in late, but I think Death & Co. is the best of the nu-cocktail places (haven't been to Apotheke or Clover Club yet). If you're on a budget I think the cocktails at East Side Company Bar are a bit more reasonable ($10 now? Used to be $8) but still great. Weathered Up I'm still not so keen on, they really need to figure out that quality of service is just as important as quality of drink.

my friend canceled on me at the very last minute, so i didn't get to try no.7 as planned. hoping to go w/in the next few weeks. that miso banana thingy sounds so good, and i don't even like dessert that much!

xpost

I'm working on a new cocktail place in DC and we're trying our best to keep the prices around $10/drink, but it's tough - it's not even so much the higher quality alcohol as it is the prep time, juices, staffing, lower volume & turnover, etc.

yah the volume seems like itd be the big thing

Volume's not so bad as long as service timing is good - sure people drink more slowly, but I know I've been at tables fancy cocktail bars plenty of times when it takes 20 minutes from the time I've finished one drink to the time I get the next one (bad/overworked servers and backed up bartenders).

I think that's one of the reasons a lot of these places are featuring punches and other larger portions now - even if it takes twice as long as a normal drink, when a table orders they're getting 4-6 servings out of it and taking a hell of a load off the staff. Win/win/win.

but its not just the slow drinking - these places tend to avoid getting too crowed so as to preserve the ambiance right

speaking of bars, we tried a new(ish) place in wmsburg last night while waiting for our table at bonita: lenora's way. craft beers are their thing, with ~ 10 on tap and some crazy number of bottles. i'm not really up on beer stuff, but i liked the 2 that i tried (a schwarzbier and a pilsner). decor is a bit fussy, but the music selection (white magic; sweetheart of the rodeo) was good and the bartender was great.

the wait for a table at bonita on a sunday night is now two beers long? egad.

my other half says Bonita in Fort Green is better.

a monday night. we were a group of 6, which probably had something to do with it, but the place was jammed.

oops, i lost a day.

columbus day!

guys, roxy's stay in our fair city has been extended and foodfap has been requested!

also, a coworker told me today that clover club in bk has the fancy vintage drink thing going on but for like $11-13 instead of $18-20!

yeeeeeeeeeah!

should we all go have fancy drinks even though it's not a foodfap?

why not

ps im loaded