July 2009 Archives

We guess it had to come to this - rainy day discounts at wine shops. Pasanella and Son Vintners (115 South Street, website) is offering 10% off purchases if it rains - plus they promise to have bottles open for tastings - with the discount bumped up to 15% if you spend $100 or more.

Sure it's sunny out now, but how long is that going to last? Deal is good until Labor Day.

A while back we posted about Eleven Madison Park's new cocktails and recently we got a chance to try them out.

But first a word about Crispy Cornets of Veal Sweetbreads. Yes folks, crispy and full of juicy, delicious sweetbreads. This may be the bar snack of the year. Do not, I repeat, do not forget to order these. You get 2 for $8 and we do not recommend sharing.

Now for the drinks - you can tell the Danny Meyer imprint is all over them. They are efficiently made, generally solid and appeal to everyone. (These are all compliments by the way.) Perhaps without peer when it comes to NY restaurateurs, Meyer ensures good dining experiences whatever the occasion - from proper service in the dining room to well made cocktails to restaurant week menus chock full of interesting choices.

Our favorite of the drinks we tried was the Oaxaca 747, which is off the menu though listed online. This delicious mix of mezcal, gin, creme de violette, maraschino and agave nectar is slightly sweet but extremely balanced. Balanced is actually the word that came to mind a lot - the New Amsterdam, a new drink made with genever gin was also nicely balanced as was the very good A La Louisiane, a version of a Manhattan made slightly bitter with the addition of Benedictine.

Cocktails are a rather steep $13 - $15 but you will get a nice assortment of olives, nuts and housemade potato chips. The service is professional as expected.

Eleven Madison Park
11 Madison Avenue
Cocktail Menu Online (currently slightly out of date)

The 2nd annual NYC Craft Beer Week has just been announced for September 11 - 19. Enjoy specialty beers around town at Zagat beer dinners and other events. You can also buy a "beer passport" for $35, which gives you access to deals that week and beyond. More info on their website.

Today is National Tequila Day and we have a spicy cocktail for you courtesy of Maestro Dobel Tequila. Maestro Dobel is a "diamond clear" aged tequila made with a blend of reposado, anejo and extra-anejo tequilas. It retails for about $75.

Dobel Spicy Chill
4 basil leaves
1 Serrano chili slice 1/4" thick
2 oz Maestro Dobel Tequila
¾ oz lime juice
¾ oz simple syrup

In a pint glass, crack the chili  with a muddler.  Add basil, then muddle or bruise. Add all spirits and mixers. Shake and strain in a cocktail glass. Garnish with a Serrano chili slice and a basil sprig.

It had to happen - one of the high end fancy cocktail joints has broken down and done a happy hour. Ella Lounge (9 Avenue A) has quite the special going - half-price off everything from 6pm to 10pm. Considering cocktails are regularly $12, that's a great deal. Try the Clark Gable, our favorite from an early visit.

When we look for happy hours, we're looking for a few things - long hours and real deals. Bar Artisanal (268 West Broadway) has one of the two components down - half-price drinks but the hours leave something to be desired.

First the drinks - beer and cocktails are 50% off. Cocktails run from $12 to $15 so this is a substantial savings. Meanwhile, the typically overpriced selection of boutique brews ($7 - $18) becomes merely affordable, not a great deal. Of course, we've lamented time and again that the high markups on trendy beers are nothing more than price gouging. There is no good financial reason a beer from Long Island or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is $7.

Now, as for the hours - we like late happy hours (10pm - 1am according to the restaurant's email but 11pm - 1am according to the menu) but 3pm - 6pm isn't much of a deal unless you're unemployed. And if you're unemployed, you're not going to be bellying up to the bar at a fancy restaurant.

So is it a deal? Kind of - especially if you're looking for a stop late at night for one last drink. But go for the hard stuff if you really want your money's worth.

Here's a happy hour for all you midtowners - Opal Bar (251 East 52nd Street) has a different deal every night of the week. Our favorite day might very well be Tuesday since it's 2 for 1 drinks from 5pm to 10pm. Wednesday is a close second, but only because it's 80s night. The complete list of specials is on their website.

Opal Bar
251 East 52nd Street
OpalBar.com
Nightly Happy Hour Specials

It's Tuesday and raining cats and dogs. So what could drag you out of the house? How about bottles of wine for $2.54 at Astor Wines & Spirits? Today all wines in the store from Argentina are 15% off. While we don't necessarily recommend buying the cheapest wines, more than half the 38 wines can be had for $9.99 or less. Talk about recession friendly.

Astor Wines & Spirits
399 Lafayette Street

Clearly the world needs more awards, especially ones celebrating the cocktail, and Tales of the Cocktail has dutifully delivered. Without further ado, this year's winners of the Spirit Awards:

· World's Best Drinks Selection
WINNER - Merchant Hotel, Belfast
· Best American Cocktail Bar
WINNER - Pegu Club, NYC
· World's Best Cocktail Bar
WINNER - PDT, NYC
· World's Best New Cocktail Bar
WINNER - Clover Club, Brooklyn
· World's Best Hotel Bar
WINNER - Merchant Hotel, Belfast
· American Bartender of the Year
WINNER - James Meehan, PDT
· International Bartender of the Year
WINNER - Tony Conigliaro
· Best New Cocktail/Bartending Book
WINNER - The Essential Cocktail - Dale DeGroff
· Best Cocktail Writing
WINNER - Dave Wondrich
· Best New Product
WINNER - Bols Genever
· World's Best Cocktail Menu
WINNER - Merchant Hotel, Belfast
· Best American Brand Ambassador
WINNER - Simon Ford, Plymouth Gin and Pernod Ricard

If you ask us, some of these categories look redundant or strangely exclusive - shouldn't the world's best cocktail bar also be the best American bar by default? As for the place in Belfast, really Belfast? Guess we'll have to put it on a future travel itinerary.

Belgian chainlet Petite Abeille has deals Monday and Tuesday this week.

Every Monday is half-priced Belgian beer at all four locations. We recommend the location at 401 East 20th since they have 30 (!) Belgian beers on tap.

This Tuesday also happens to be Belgian National Day - Belgium's independence day. Since you never know how long that country will stay together, here's your chance to celebrate with free frites and $3 Stellas from 4pm - close. (401 E. 20th Street, 44 West 17th Street & 139 West Broadway). Live jazz at 20th Street and West Broadway. According to their flyer, 466 Hudson is left out of the Tuesday festivities.

Sometimes you come across something so inexplicable, you just have to go with the flow. After undertaking a Bastille Day-inspired booze crawl, we wound up in the West Village for one last drink... or so we thought. We had heard that Kurt Gutenbrunner had finally opened his wine bar, The Upholstery Store, a few doors down from Wallse - something we first caught wind of 4 or 5 years ago - and decided it would be our nightcap spot.

Sure, it was in Daily Candy but we figured it would be manageable. As you can see from the photo above, however, manageable was not the first word that came to our minds as we turned the corner onto Washington Street and saw a horde of people on the sidewalk.

We had a decision to make - soldier on or head home. As we were already fueled by booze, we made our way into the crowd...

The next Joy of Sake Aftertaste is this Wednesday July 15 at the space formerly called Buddha Bar (the NYC owners were ordered to drop the name and will re-christen the space this Fall).

Joy of Sake Aftertaste events are periodic tastings revolving around a particular theme - this one's is the different types of rice used in sake making. No, it's not Uncle Ben's. Attendees will get to taste 39 different sakes and enjoy appetizers for $39 (all inclusive). You can buy tickets online or call 888-799-7242.

Tickets are also on sale for the big Joy of Sake blowout - September 24 at Webster Hall.

Joy of Sake Aftertaste
Wednesday July 15, 6pm - 8pm
17 Little West 12th Street (formerly Buddha Bar)

Ward III (111 Reade Street) has been open two weeks and our first visit left us wondering how they would adapt to the market, so we dropped in again on a recent night. The bar was quite busy - it was later than our first visit - and we were immediately given menus without a word about the concept. So much for bespoke cocktails, I guess.

We ordered a Ward 111 (Makers Mark, strawberries, lime, egg white, peychauds bitters & nutmeg) and The Collective (blended scotch, Dolin sweet vermouth, lemon, honey, egg white). The Collective was delicious while the Ward 111 was fine but not memorable. Another well made but fairly non-descript cocktail was The Singer (rye, fresh raspberries, orange bitters, fresh lemon, honey water). As for food, we still have our quibbles. For some unknown reason the deviled eggs called our names but what arrived was a big letdown - exactly one and a half eggs for $6. They certainly weren't good enough to justify $2 per half of egg.

In the meantime, we're still waiting for the glass eaters and contortionists promised by the website. Maybe in week 3...

We've probably spent too much money at the underground lounge at Tailor (525 Broome Street) since it opened but we wondered how the place was doing after its recent troubles, so we popped in for a visit.

The upstairs sat empty, a sad but probably inevitable occurrence since they never did make the dining side work - part location, part victim of hype and part just not hitting it out of the park menu wise. Downstairs some "djs" were spinning but the place was fairly desolate. The drinks list was pretty much the same but there was one drink that stood out - the Lovage Sour. We ordered one (gin, lemon, lovage aquavit $13) as well as the Waylon, a bourbon and smoked coke drink we've always liked ($12). The Lovage Sour was fantastic, one of the best drinks we've had all year, and the Waylon was reliably good. For a nightcap, my partner in drinks ordered the Aqua verde (tequila, tomatillo, cilantro, habanero $13), a drink that always struck me as inexplicable. It's not that it's bad - okay it's pretty bad if you ask me - but that it's terribly vegetal. There's certainly nothing delicious about it, but defiantly it remains on the menu, alongside that awful bubble gum drink.

Will Tailor survive the bankruptcy and "temporary" closure of the dining room? Who knows. You can make a lot of money in this town off booze but enough to operate a space like this and pay off debts? That's a tough one. As for the drinks, people like experimentation to a degree but you also have to put out delicious product. Tailor sometimes succeeds and sometimes doesn't. But when a drink like the Lovage Sour works, it kind of restores your faith in creative cocktail-making.

The founder of As Good as its Guests, a nightlife/restaurant/gossip blog, is hosting an event on Friday June 10 to raise money for pediatric cancer research. By partnering with JoonBug.com and Hudson Terrace, they're offering an open bar from 9pm to 10pm for a $20 donation. The proceeds will be donated to Memorial Sloan Kettering Pediatric Cancer Research.

Get your tickets here: http://asgoodasitsguests.eventbrite.com/

Hudson Terrace
621 West 46th Street
Charity Fundraiser - Friday June 10

Maslow 6 is the new name of the Vino Vino wine shop (211b W. Broadway, Tribeca) and they are gearing up with a series of tastings. If you're lucky, you may score a spot in their Alsace wine tasting tomorrow night (7/9 6:30pm - 8:30pm). Taste some wines from Alsace plus cheese and charcuterie. Space is limited to 10 people so RSVP fast - to register go to Maslow6.com or email events@maslow6.com.

Recently we've noticed a new beer around town - Palm Beer. The name made us wonder if it was another beer from Southeast Asia and the restaurants we've seen it in, such as Co., Spina and Onda, didn't give us much of a clue to its origins. So we did a quick google and learned it was actually from Belgium.
 
How is it beer from Belgium's largest family brewery - they've produced beer since 1747 - never made it to America? We asked the importers, Latis Imports, how this could be. Turns out they two ex InBev (the company that bought Anheiser Busch) guys who were keen to bring Palm to the U.S. It first arrived in NYC in November 2007 and started wide distribution last year. Now you can buy it at Whole Foods, Food Emporium and Gourmet Garage, as well as tons of restaurants around town.

So what makes Palm so good? For starters, the brewery is still an independent family brewery and we should support those kind of establishments. And they put out a damn good beer. Palm is an ale made in the traditional style but it's lighter and more approachable. It's also creamy, great for a hot day and drinks well with food, hence its popularity with restaurants. If you haven't tried it, we think you'll find it worth your while.