Sunday, June 27th, 2010—Bar 168

Day 168—Saturday, June 26th, 2010
Corner Bistro
Okay, it’s Cheeseburger Saturday Night, wherein I go to a bar and sample their cheeseburger. Tonight I chose the Corner Bistro. This is a legendary bar in Greenwich Village that gets really packed, so I’m going early. It’s 5:45pm and I’m hoping there won’t be a big crowd yet. But there’s only one way to find out and that’s to start crawling.

Okay, here we go down 16th Street on a beautiful New York City evening.

Okay, these boots aren't made for walking. I've been standing here staring at them for fifteen minutes and now I'm wondering why I'm standing here waiting for abandoned boots to move. I think my brain is melting.

Aww, the Day O restaurant is shuttered. Please don't put a T.G.I.Fridays in here, Riese Corporation. You've destroyed enough of Manhattan including my neighborhood.

Positively 4th Street.

And here we are, The Corner Bistro.

Wow, it's only 5:45pm and it's already crowded in here. But there's one seat at the bar and I'm going to snag it!

The friendly bartender, Harold serves up an Amstel Light.

The full bar at Corner Bistro.

When just two pages of selections on the jukebox include, Bob Dylan, Stan Getz and Edgar Winter's White Trash, you know it's a great jukebox.

Wow, it's just a little after six and it's already filling up in here!

Here's the menu, but I already know what I want, it's Cheeseburger Saturday Night after all!

The bottled beers available at Corner Bistro.

Here’s Mark Bitterman who was enjoying the legendary Corner Bistro cheeseburger. Mark was born here in New York City and his parents met right here in the bar! It’s hearing cool stories like this that make this bar crawl so fun. Mark lives in Portland, Oregon now and has a store called The Meadow that sells Artisan Salts, Wine, Chocolate and Flowers. Does that sound like a cool place or what? Check it out here, you can buy products online: The Meadow. And Mark has multiple blogs, which you can peruse right here: Salt News, Chocolate News and In The Cupboard. Mark also has a book coming out in October called: Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes. You can pre-order it from Amazon here: Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes.

And here it is, the star of the evening, the Corner Bistro Bacon Cheeseburger!

Goddamn, Sam, it looks delicious!

And it is! Love the Cheeseburger Saturday Night!

Here's Anthony and Rachel and at the last second, Caitlin jumped into the picture.

It turns out it was Caitlin's birthday, so I took a shot of her in her shades with Anthony and Rachel. Happy Birthday, Caitlin! Hope you're not too hungover today!

Wow, it's just a little after seven at night and the place is jammed. It took me five minutes of maneurving just to get this shot. I'm claustrophobic and I have to get out of here now.

In the front room on my way out I saw the loneliest ketchup bottle in the world, befriended only by a stack of paper napkins. Sob! Goodnight, everybody!

Review
If you come here on a weekend night and want a table or even a place at the bar, be prepared to wait. It get’s packed in here and for a good reason. It’s a classic New York City bar with a sparse but excellent menu, seasoned New York bartenders, a great jukebox and it’s the total opposite of a T.G.I.Fridays that you shouldn’t spend any money at, especially the fucking one they opened up in my neighborhood. This place is a reminder to spend your money at the great original locally owned joints in town. The bar is pure mahogany, carved and well worn and there’s tables off to the side and in the back room.

It’s a full bar and if you’re low on dough, you’re in luck, there’s five choices of drafts available for just $2.50 including McSorley’s Dark and Light Ale, Budweiser, Coors Light and Rolling Rock. The menu is spartan, but really there’s only one item that needs mentioning, the bacon cheeseburger. It’s a meal unto itself and in a cheeseburger rivalry town, it makes all the top ten lists. And for a good reason, it’s delicious and just $6.75 for eight ounces of beef, melted cheese, a pile of bacon and an onion on a bakery fresh toasted roll. Moooo!

Corner Bistro
331 W. 4th St. (@Jane St.)
212-242-9502

Saturday, June 26th, 2010—Bar 167

Day 167—Friday, June 25th, 2010
Mustang Sally's
Friday night’s have been tough to do since the beginning of this blog way back in January. Most bars are too crowded and noisy to talk to people and take pictures of them. And the one’s that aren’t are a little boring sometimes. Saturdays were tough as well, but I feel I’ve fixed that problem by going earlier and getting a cheeseburger and have that be the main focus of the blog. But Friday’s continued to haunt me (as witnessed in last Friday’s entry.) But I think I’ve finally figured out a way to do Friday nights, get photos, feature a bar and still have it be fun. What I’ve decided to do is to take shots of a bar from that night and the captions will be dialogue from a character in the movie. Just like we’re out drinking with that character. I think it’ll be fun, we’ll test it out tonight.

A couple days ago in the Subway Inn post I mentioned the character Frank Booth from the movie, “Blue Velvet.” I love this movie and Dennis Hopper should be awarded a lifetime Academy Award for bringing this character to life. It’s one of the most twisted and dark movies I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t seen the movie you should, Bravo named it the 84th scariest movie of all time:

And here’s a primer on Frank courtesy of Wikipedia: Frank Booth. Okay, get your gasmasks ready, because tonight, we drink with Frank Booth at nearby Mustang Sally’s!

Hey, no smile for Frank? No? OK. Fuck it. Let's go.

What kind of beer do you like to drink, neighbor?

Heineken? Fuck that shit! Pabst Blue Ribbon!

Don't toast to my health, toast to my fuck!

Where's the glasses? That beer's gonna get warm. One thing I can't fuckin' stand is warm beer. It makes me fuckin' puke!

Shut up! It's Daddy, you shithead! Where's my bourbon?

Suave! Goddamn you're one suave fucker!

Ah, shit, let's drink to something else. Let's drink to fuck. Yeah, say, "Here's to your fuck, Frank.”

I'll send you a love letter! Straight from my heart, fucker! You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, you're fucked forever! You understand, fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!

No I want you to fuck it. Shit, yes, pour the fuckin' beer.

Ain't that right, Tits?

Be polite!

Let's hit the fuckin' road!

Now it's dark.

Review
Mustang Sally’s is a little bit like their down the street neighbor, Mustang Harry’s—a little on the bland side. But to some, that’s not always a bad thing. The crowd is a mix of tourists, commuters having a few for the road before they hit Penn Station and people either going to or coming from an event at Madison Square Garden. The bar is long and wooden and there’s giant wooden booths off to the side of it, where you can dine and drink. There’s lots of TV’s for the many sports fans that occupy this joint at any given time. You won’t find any grizzled regulars here, but the mood is friendly and most nights you can catch a seat at the bar.

It’s a full bar and they have a kitchen with a large menu. It’s pretty much your standard pub grub consisting of burgers, wings and chicken sandwiches, but a few things that stand out on the menu are a chicken pot pie, a Cuban sandwich and Irish Whiskey Chicken. Happy hour happens Monday through Friday from 3pm to 6pm and it offers, four dollar orders of wings, four buck McSorlely’s and shots of Jameson for, yes, that’s right, four dollars.

They have Heineken, but sadly no Pabst Blue Ribbon. So I guess Frank Booth won’t be coming back.

Now it’s dark.

Mustang Sally's
324 Seventh Ave. (Near 28th St.)
212-695-3806

Friday, June 25th, 2010—Bar 166

Day 166—Tursday, June 24th, 2010
Rum House
First off, thanks and a shout out to Fat Al for giving 365 a shout-out about the Subway Inn stop in his blog, “The Half Empty Glass,” that he writes and runs with his fellow contributer anonymous271. Here’s the post: 365 in the Half Empty Glass. Thanks, Fat Al, let me know when you guys want to join the crawl, I’ll buy the first round.

Every year Esquire magazine puts together a list of “America’s Best Bars.” There’s two bars in New York City that made the list this year and one of them (Old Town) I’ve already been to. The other is a place called The Rum House in the Edison Hotel on 47th St. near Broadway. That’s within walking distance from where I work, so let’s go see if Esquire called the right shot here.

Okay down 30th street...

Over to Broadway...

And awaaay we go!

Hello pretzel man.

Hello smiley pretzel man.

Tad's!

Yikes, it feels like last Friday all over again, where the fuck is this hotel?

Whew! Here we are. Now where's the bar?

Right next door, and it looks promising.

Nice and dark inside and it has the feel of the old Times Square. Nice choice, Esquire! I'll renew my subscription.

Francisco is a true gentleman and an excellent old-school bartender. And he knows the secret way to hold the 365 Bar Crawl card. Not too many people are clued into this.

Part time waiter, Steve told me the bar is struggling to exist, with rising rents and other bills bars face. Stop in here and have some drinks and let's help this place survive. It's one of the last worthwhile watering holes in Times Square.

Free pretzels!

A great tin bartop.

There's tables in the back.

Mary and Brian work down the street and said it would suck if the place closes.

The crowd here is a nice mix of friendly locals and tourists.

Francisco hard at work.
Meanwhile, back at the bar I met Martin, who was visiting New York from Ireland.

Then Joan and Lasse stopped in. They're a fun couple visiting from Denmark. The beers are really starting to flow now, along with good conversation. Tonight is one of the great night's on the old crawl.

John and John (could it be that I've drank so much at this point I'm hearing double?) join the party.

Another great night meeting and hanging out with new friends from all over the globe on the Bar Crawl! Goodnight, everybody!

Review
Okay, since I got the idea to go here from Esquire, I’ll reprint their review (this way I don’t have to write one!)

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The Rum House at Hotel Edison, New York

You're having: Scotch, rocks

When I'm in New York, I often ask to meet people at my favorite dark bar, a place called the Rum House that fronts the Hotel Edison on 47th Street. Not because it has a good jukebox (it does), or because the drinks are remarkable (they are not), or because it's an old-timey Times Square haunt. I like it because the windows in the Rum House face north, toward the cold cavern of a midtown cross street, hugged as they are on either side by heavy curtains. Because passers-by tent their brows and press the glass for a look at the guts of the place, which the darkness does not yield.

Because when I get there early and let my eyes adjust, I always get the first long look at the blinking and uncertain face of whosoever I am meeting. The place gives me options while they search the darkness. I can stand, or I can wave them over to where I sit, or I can wait until they recognize who I am and where we are. —Tom Chiarella

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Esquire, you made the right call on the Rum House, one of Manhattan’s finest and a dying breed of a bar. Good review Tom, but I had a Beer, bottle; about seven of them. Cheers!

Rum House
228 W. 47th St. (Near Broadway)
212-869-3005