We drank our way through Manhattan.
It's a good way to see Manhattan.
Take pictures though, cause you'll be drunk and won't remember much.
Coming in from the airport, we spotted several Irish pubs. We were pointing them out until it became redundant and we realized we were in New York, there are A Lot of Irish pubs. The World Cup was also happening, so many of them looked packed. There is at least one pub on every block. They're all walk ups, narrow staircases, crowded and have but one single seater, m/f/unicorn who cares bathroom. In my mind, they were built before indoor plumbing. Before fire codes. Before wheelchairs and walkers and obesity and sidewalks. And they haven't changed. And I love them. The bartenders are all from Queens, or Queens, or Brooklyn or Queens. A lot of bartenders are from Queens, I'm just sayin'. OH, except the one in Hell's Kitchen. He was from Hell's Kitchen.
In addition, there are the lovely local small restaurants that somehow manage in the insanity of Broadway shows. The Glass House Tavern, a fine example, was next to the Edison hotel and a few steps down from an Irish Pub. Both are situated to bookend the giant purple neon SIX shouting at 47th street from the Lena Horne theatre. We discovered the Irish Pub becomes an annoying dance club after eight pm. I blame this on Six playing next door. Suddenly everyone is En Vogue, and they all want to huddle and drink on their feet after the show. Ugh. We knew something was up when there was a doorman checking ID's at The Mean Fiddler Irish Pub. We could tell from the door it was not behaving as an Irish Pub should, it was jammed with humans swaying to TLC (we discovered the same music choice across the street at the Brooklyn Chop House, but with different results) and waving mixed drinks in their hands. Three warning signs Jim and I will not stay in a pub: They are playing dance music of any kind. People are standing with mixed drinks. We can't get to the bar. All three critera were met, so we walked a circle around the bar to confirm the situation, and walked out. The door man nodded as we left. He knew when we entered we wouldn't stay. He could tell. So we stepped away from The Mean Fiddler to The Glass House Tavern. Which was narrow and looked friendlier. There were tall tables, but no body was standing without a table. Check. There was no music. Check. There were seats at the bar. Check. Weirdly, I noted it looked inaccessible by wheelchair (this became a thing with me in New York, I'm not in a wheelchair, but I became hyper aware that if I were, I would not get in anywhere)- but one night I saw a wheelchair in the corner of the bar, so they could get in- and had a limited menu, and seats at the bar. We do love empty seats at a bar. I may have repeated that a few times. So in this case, the regular bar won over the pub. The Glass House, with its trendy young bartenders and tight space, could easily have chosen to give in to the En Vogue hurricane that hit The Mean Fiddler. But The Glass House Tavern chose to maintain her dignity and remain a quiet, trendy supper bar without selling her soul. The Mean Fiddler was not so much a mean fiddler, as true mean fiddler woulda told those 90's loving R&B soul funk new jack swing pop hip hop dance goobers to go get a goofy drink next door, this is a pub.
We were "regulars" at The Glass House, deliberately shunning the mad rush of girl band fans "dancing" at the alleged Irish pub. We got to know Skye the young bartender who was at the waiter station end of the bar. A bar this close to Broadway is forced to offer what a bartender friend of mine called "Goofy Drinks", meaning a lot of stupid named mixes of juice and flavored vodka and fruit. I swear I saw cranberries on a drink. With names like: Sparkling Peach Martini, or Jalapeno Cilantro Martini or Gary's Place--which is essentially pineapple flavored everything with pineapple--are exactly the kinds of drinks audiences at SIX would like. Again I wonder why the IRISH PUB is the place playing the girl group music, and The Glass Tavern is where I could get a beer. There were clearly patrons who wanted the Goofy Drinks, as Skye was very busy and quite adept and mixing them effortlessly. Jim and I just watched him dance with the drinks while we chatted and people peeped and occasionally checked to see what was on the bar televisions.
For several years, I worked at a bar in Denver with a bartender from Hell's Kitchen. He did not tend bar in Hell's Kitchen, he was from Hell's Kitchen. He'd had some success in stocks or trading or delivering the Wall Street Journal, and retired to a penthouse in Denver. Three days a week, he would leave and come tend bar as a hobby. He was my favorite. He still had his NY Take No Shit accent and attitude. I thought of him a lot on this trip, as I watched bartenders in pubs talk loudly about whomever or whatever was on their minds while drawing beer and occasionally mixing a martini. Even though he was not a bartender in New York, I believe that all New Yorkers are the same type of bartender: You'll drink what they bring you.
And I loved every, single second in every, single pub and bar and even the purple and sultry Brooklyn Chop House, which had me looking for Eddie Murphy in a corner booth. That bartender was Caribbean, and her partner who tended the waiters at the other end of the bar was definitely a born and bred New Yorker, moving quickly and having no time for your personal issue of needing a dumpling without cauliflower. Do you see cauliflower anywhere in the ingredients? Nope. 'cause there is no cauliflower in the dumpling, ma'am. Next. This is why she was assigned the waiters and not the patrons at the bar. I don't know why she chose that moment to go rogue, but I had a good time watching it. Drinks and a show! We ended up at the Chop House on Monday, as weirdly the Glass House was closed. So we sat at the Chop House bar looking out the window at the closed Glass House and judging the Chop House. They had more space than any other restaurant besides Friedman's that we encountered, they had two stories of tables and generous bar space. It was very much a steak house, the kind I remember from the 1980's. Lotta wood, everything is dark, music playing low. Booths. That was the day we walked to Central Park and back, so we were hungry and ordered dumplings. They had french onion soup dumplings. The menu was weird, but the dumplings were great. So we went ahead and ventured to order a $86 steak cooked medium. We think it was a language issue with the bartender, the steak was well well shoe leather well done. We ate it because we were hungry, and we did not complain because what good would it have done? Everyone's still struggling to staff their restaurants, even on 47th. The next day the Glass Tavern was open again, so we did not return to the Chop House. But Jim did buy a baseball cap there. I am unsure as to why.
My friend Pete took us to a pub in his 'hood- Hell's Kitchen- called Gossip. We also went to the Playwright Celtic Pub which had a doorman, but his job seemed to be to sort people between the upstairs bar and the restaurant downstairs. Bartender from Queens braying about something he did not care for that recently occurred. They had a few original brews, the Jack's amber was great. They also still had their big plastic tents out front, a few places kept those. I suppose it does help with seating, as I said, nothing is wheelchair accessible. There was also Arriba, Arriba in Hell's Kitchen, whose margaritas knocked me flat and I had to be walked back to the hotel between Pete and Jim. We ventured to Sardis because you have to go to Sardis, and confirmed my hatred of martinis. But we saw Neil Diamond enter on the red carpet for opening night of his show A Beautiful Noise, it was like we were peeping Toms from above. I took a napkin 'cause they say "Sardis" on them, just like it's still 1952.
And so, all in all, to sum up, in conclusion, there are a lot of bars in Manhattan. We did not make it to every one of them. That'd be a fun trip...hmmm.
Scene.
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