March 31st, 2010—Bar 80

Day 80—Tuesday, March 30th
White Rabbit

Ilisha Helfman has a blog called, Sunday Magazine Paper Doll Challenge, you can check it out here: Sunday Magazine Paper Doll Challenge. It’s really a genius blog and lots of fun. Well, Ilisha felt sorry for me, because I never have a date on any of my bar crawlings. I explained to her that it’s best to do this job alone, it would be impossible to pay full attention to a woman and do my bar crawl meet and greet thing. Well, Ilisha solved my problem, she arranged for me to have a date with a real doll. And she just arrived in the mail today! Check her out!
She’s so pretty, I need to take her to a classy place. I Googled best date bars and found a place in New York Magazine’s top five best date bars called White Rabbit. It looks perfect and as a kid I loved the song White Rabbit by Jefferson AirplaneJ, and I had a huge crush on Grace Slick, the lead singer of the Airplane. I was wondering what to name my date and now that solves it, from here on in, she’s Grace. Come along Grace, it’s time to go.

I think Grace is a little nervous, but don’t worry, I’ll let you out of the bag soon. I promise!

Here we are, the White Rabbit on Houston Street. It's a cold and rainy night and not too many people are out.

Here's the spacious bar at White Rabbit.

I decide to try a chocolate martini here, just one of their many specialty cocktails. The bartender is David and he's friendly and fast with a drink!

And it's delicious! David is a master mixologist! Oh shit...I forgot about Grace!

Don't worry Grace, you'll be out soon!

Here you go, out in to the wild blue yonder.

Yikes, I think she's a little pissed off.

Okay, she's royally pissed off. Luckily I know what to do in a situation like this.

Ply her with booze. Have some wine, Grace, it'll loosen you up.

Here's the front room of White Rabbit with comfortable seating and tables.

They have original artwork on display that changes at the first of every month. This month's artist is Dave Tree.

There's more comfortable seating in the lounge area in the back room.

David pours the next drink, the Mad Hatter Margarita, it's delicious!

And Grace is feeling much better after a couple glasses of wine. In fact, maybe she's feeling a little too good, she's dancing on the bar.

Here's the state of the art DJ booth in the back room, DJ's spin tunes on the weekend at White Rabbit.

Some of the many beers and tequila availble at the bar.

And speaking of beers, I close the night out having a beer for my mate Fitzi, who thinks I've lost it drinking these specialty cocktails!

And speaking of lost it, Grace has settled into her bed after too many glasses of wine. Say goodnight, Grace. "Goodnight Grace." And goodnight everybody!

Review

It would be easy to pass the White Rabbit by on the street as there’s no neon, no awning and no chalkboard on the side walk announcing the nightly specials. Subtlety be thy name. The White Rabbit doesn’t hit you over the head with gimmicky tricked out signage inside or out and that’s refreshing. Inside you’ll find front and back rooms that are comfortable to lounge in while enjoying cocktails and the eclectic music and films that are displayed on the back screening wall. The bar is in the middle of this cocktail oasis and it’s spacious and the bartenders are friendly and happy to point out specials and alert you to their signature cocktails.

There’s a full bar available with a good selection of beer, wine, single malts & liquers. But the specialty here is cocktails, so save your beer thirsts for another night when you’re kicking back in a dive bar. White Rabbit offers up five martini’s including: Chocolate Hazelnut Martini, Lychee Apple Martini and a Ginger Spice Martini. Some of the unique specialty cocktails include: Peach Lemonade, Paradise Cocktail and a Raspberry Gimlet. The food is a combination of Latin and Asian flavors including: Grilled Mini Burgers with Shoestring Fries, Shrimp Wontons, Bolinese Beef Skewers and Mushroom Empenadas.. All the food is bought fresh daily and made in house.

The daily happy hour runs from 6 pm to 9 pm offering up $4 beers, well drinks, frozen margaritas, and daiquiris. There’s occasional live music and DJ’s spin tunes every weekend.

So if you want to experience a great date night, don’t bother asking Alice, just head over to the White Rabbit.

White Rabbit
145 E. Houston St. (Near Eldridge St.)
212-477-5005

And thanks to Ilisha for supplying my doll date, Grace! Here’s some information about Ilisha, who’s a talented artist and jazz knitter. I pulled this off her blog:

My name’s Ilisha Helfman. My husband, Joe Freedman, and I have a laser design studio in Portland, Oregon called LEAF display. We make customizable pop-up cards for paper appreciators and corporate clients. We also make paper pop-up toys and optical toys and have a new store in Portland called LEAFpdx where you can visit our wares. In addition, I have another site for my miniatures and jazzknitting here: Hestia House.