the underbelly

I’ve been researching tonic lately (hopefully we’ll see the fruits of that labor soon) and found out that tonic water glows under a black light.  Now, I had noticed this in the past (mostly at awful black light, wear white themed frat parties) but never questioned why or what was glowing.  Apparently it’s the quinine in tonic water that does the glowing.  Not only will enough of it help out with malaria (don’t rely on it unless you make your own tonic, today’s tonic doesn’t contain nearly enough quinine to make a difference to the weakest of strains) but it will dazzle and entertain you’re easily entertained guests.  You know, the same kind of guests who are really into things like “Planet Earth” and that magic eye poster you have from when you were 9.

I spent the long weekend over in Cambridge with the bfri. It’s a nice change of pace from the big city but usually pales in comparason to the big apple when it comes to things like food, drinks, transportation…most things. But not this past Friday. We went to grab a pre-dinner drink at the Oak Bar, the bfri’s favorite place to feel ultra high class and important due to its oaky-ness, high ceilings, and large scotch selection. (I would have taken pictures but 1. it was a nice night out and I don’t like to mix blogging with pleasure and 2. my camera was out of battery.) So the bfri chose a sort of muddled rum-type drink. It was nice. Good citrus, nice mint….etc….But I chose the best drink ever.

Now let me preface this by saying that I don’t like vodka. I know people say it doesn’t have a taste but that’s not true. It does. It tastes like grain and I’m not into it. Usually my martini is straight gin (Plymouth) with tons of olives. But I decided to be adventurous. I got the pear and blue cheese martini. It consisted of La Poire Grey Goose pear vodka and I believe some sort of pepper infused vodka. Then it was garnished with three blue cheese stuffed olives. Best. Drink. Ever. The pear was so subtle, not sweet like an appletini but soft like, well…like a pear. The pepper added just enough bite to stop the drink from being overly simple and the blue cheese in the olives gave off just the slightest hint of saltiness. I could drink these everyday. I could have made a few of those my dinner, gladly.

Where can I get this in New York? Seriously. It’s making my mouth water just to think about it…..

Being the native Californian that I am, I still refuse to acknowledge the cold. So I walked into Satsko sake bar with a head of frozen hair. But Jessie, the bartender, didn’t judge. Instead he set before me a feast of sake.

We started with the house sake, Shochikubai. It tasted like…well it tasted like house sake. Like alcohol and rice and grain or “nail polish remover,” as Jessie said. This was contrasted with Taru, another Jumai sake but more refined. It was smoky, floral and a heck of a lot creamier than the others.

At that point the chef produced a few plates of his new fried rice. Awesome. If I’m good for anything in this world it’s tasting sake and testing free fried rice.

Then it was onto the sweeter sakes. Again, a house versus a higher tier sake. The first was the house, a Nigori Shochikubai, in a huge green bottle. It wasn’t filtered so the liquid was almost thick and very cloudy, incredibly opaque. Now, I don’t want to insult my fellow Californians (the sake was from Berkeley) but it was terrible. Okay, not terrible, I did drink it all. But it was the only one I had to shoot to get down. It tasted like candy, in the bad way. It tasted like corn syrup had been dumped into it. Apparently this sells very well. Good job college kids, way to ruin those palates.

The next one, a Nigori Ginjo called Kamoizumi, which means “mirror of truth,” was worlds away from the house Nigori. It was thin and white and sweet on the tongue at first but then dry at the end. The nose was that of a perfumed honeysuckle and it tasted reminiscent of pears. Delicious. I could definitely drink a small bottle of it…a large one on a hot summer day.

The third round was between Wakatake, a Jumai Dai Ginjyo (which means uber good and refined rice) and a Kubota Senjyu, a Jumai Ginjyo. These were both very high end and yummy, both so different from what most Americans would think of as sake.

The Wakatake (which in my notes is walkie talkie, which makes me like it even more) came in a large brown bottle. It was floral, oaky and creamy. It smelled like a ripe apple orchard. It was incredibly complex. Every time I sipped I tasted something new. This was by far my favorite of the group.

The Kubota was something I would have with a meal. It was very direct, to the point. Incredibly clean on the palate but it had the same floral nose.

The bar was friendly, small and very out of the way (7th between B and C) but somewhere I would definitely take people, just to show them how good sake can really be. As I sit here with my thick, robust bottle of McSoreley’s black and tan, I’m happy but I crave the delicate nature of some of the better sakes we tasted. I’ll be sure to head to Sakaya soon to pick up some bottles for myself and experiment more. Because “the only way to really know this stuff,” Jessie told me, “is the drink a lot of it.” I can’t agree more with his advice.

Coyote Ugly was a terrible movie. Really, really terrible. But before the movie drew in all the tourists it was a darned good bar. And why wouldn’t it be? Who doesn’t like a girl dancing on a bar wearing more leather than the average cow? Who doesn’t like skipping the shot glass and having booze poured directly into your open mouth? It’s not for every day of the week, but it certainly has its place in the circuit.

I did some research and was surprised to find out that this type of bar is a dying breed in New York. There’s Coyote Ugly, of course, there’s Hogs and Heifers, there was the Village Idiot, though that’s now gone, and then there’s my favorite, the most subtle of the bunch: Yogi’s.

Even as a female, or perhaps especially because I’m a female, I love some good attention from a cute female bartender. It’s a nice change from the usual desperate attempts we have to make to just get a glance. I am much more willing to tip a girl who offers me shots of whatever she’s having (because yes, she is drinking, which could be why she’s so darned friendly) than I am willing to tip a bar maidy who is only concerned with the I-bankers in the corner.

Let’s go through the Yogi’s experience a bit and maybe you’ll all see that these types of bars are a good thing, even if they do inspire really terrible movies.

Yogi’s is on Broadway in the seventies. I know, not the place you usually find such a bar. There’s no sign that says the name, only a large neon sign that reads “BAR.” The only indication that this really is Yogi’s is the large, wooden bear outside the door. You walk into a slim room with a bar and stools flanking one end. Behind the bar and your friendly barmaids who quickly take your order (go for the $6 pitchers of pabst, don’t kid yourself on where you are) and even fetch you a bowl of peanuts if you’re peckish, which you are free to shell and toss onto the floor if you are so obliged.

A quick side note on the pitchers. During one trip to Yogi’s in my younger days I met a man who I believe personifies what the bar can be. Snap shot: scruffy guy in his early thirties carrying around a pitcher of pabst, drinking from it using a straw. When asked why he responded that his girlfriend of six years had broken up with him. The bar ladies had decided that that merited a straw with his pitcher. See? Compassion.

Anyway, so you order your pitcher. You sit down. You drink. Ten minutes later you’ve become pen pals for life (ppfl) with the couple next to you (the last time I went the couple was British, Hi Paul, Hi Sarah!), you’ve really gotten good and shelling peanuts and, after a couple of complementary shots with your bar maid, you know not only where she’s from but where she got her latest tattoo. The last time I checked these ladies (who do on occasion pour from the bottle into the mouths of patrons) earn over $300 in tips a night. That’s more than I make a week.

Forget the fancy cocktails, I’ll take a cheap pitcher and a drunken bar maid from the Bronx any day of the week.

So why aren’t there more of these bars in the city?

I’ll leave you with that question, a couple of links about other such bars, and pictures. Note the signs, sassy, no?

A little history of Coyote Ugly

Some conflict between the bar dancing chicas

No Dancing!

A hard rock take on the old stylings