Jaffe

A night out

After spending last Saturday outside walking around and hanging out in Central Park, I went for a drink with Sean and Ana, the two students who moved out here with the lab from London. We decided to walk around the neighborhood, see what looked interesting, and go from there. Two things about going out for a drink in Manhattan that are obviously different from going out for a drink in London: 1) the bar scene generally starts, and ends, much later than in London, and 2) you need to bring your i.d. In the UK, and elsewhere in Europe, they basically don’t card you unless you look like my 10-year-old nephew (and he might be OK in a Weatherspoons pub). In New York, it’s better to bring one. So although I’m sure that the doormen have never seen UK or Portugese passports, Sean and Ana are fine as long as they show the doormen where it says their date of birth.

We settled on a really nice cocktail/martini bar on 1st Avenue called ‘Stir’ (http://www.stirnyc.com). I’m sure there are a million bars like this in New York, but we haven’t seen them yet, so this one was a nice change to the pubs that I had been to so far. The DJ was playing just the right amount of cheese, we settled into some comfy couches, and just relaxed and had a couple of drinks. The XXX martini tasted of nothing but olives, which was too much for me, but they definitely don’t use measures here, so I don't mind paying $8-$10 a drink. Nice to know there’s somewhere like this in the neighborhood.

posted by Aron @ 11:13 PM