My first trip to New York City was in October of 2008. Contrary to what most people say, we found the majority of people in New York to be pretty damn friendly… I cant tell you how many drinks or shots were purchased for us by new friends made in the bars or restaurants. Even most of the initial assholes we’re cool in the end.
My first trip to New York City was in October of 2008. My girlfriend and I stayed in Times Square (dont do this) seeing as how thats where “everything” is. We quickly found out that it’s WAY, overpriced and pretty much a tourist trap. Though the bus tours are worth it… lots of good info and you can use them as a kind of cab to get around Manhattan Island as well. We ventured out on the subway which was pretty damn confusing and eventually agreed we like the East Greenwich Village and Soho areas the best. We spent a lot of time in East Greenwich Village going to shops, cafe’s and the little neighborhood bars. The people were friendly and a good time was being had by all. We met a ton of people, and for the most part we didn’t run into any rude people other than in Times Square. Contrary to what most people say, we found the majority of people in New York to be pretty damn friendly… I cant tell you how many drinks or shots were purchased for us by new friends made in the bars or restaurants.
Though we have a ton of stories from the trip, I’ll share one particular evening in this post.
One evening Mikey and I planned on meeting our friend Shelly. She had moved from Houston to NYC about a year earlier. We called her up and made plans. She said to meet her at a German bar by her place, somewhere on the lower east side (if i’m not mistaken) and that she would make reservations for dinner at a cool mexican place.
I think this was our third day in the city and we’d kind of figured out the subway, so we hopped on and went to meet shelly around 8pm. Our dinner reservations were for 10pm, so we had time to check out her place, have a drink and make it to the restaurant. Mikey and I arrived at 8ish to the German bar and Shelly was already there waiting for us. The place was really cool, it was small, but had a full German band in the whole Oktoberfest gear. The place was packed shoulder to shoulder and everyone was sloshing beer overhead singing and dancing with the music. These beers were huge! We got one a piece, I forget the brewer, but it was a delicious Oktoberfest brew.
Mikey and Shelly, Notice how big those beers are!
We finished up our beers and asked for the tab, the waitress came back and handed us the ticket. 58 fucking dollars!!! for 3 beers none of us could believe it. Sure they were big, but they were not that damn big. Shelly even asked the waitress, “Is this right?” and the waitress semi rolled her eyes and said “Yea honey, thats right”. The woman sitting next to us scoffed and rolled her eyes, lol. Let me tell you one thing about a lot of these New York places, the tables are butted up right next to one another, as you’ll see in the pics from La Esquina. The person sitting next to us was about a foot and a half to Shelly’s left. Anyway, we paid the outrageous bill and stopped at Shelly’s place for a quick sec.
We took a cab from Shelly’s to La Esquina. When we arrived this is what we saw:
A little taco stand. Entering the front door you could see this place was about 12 feet wide and 100 feet long… shotgun style. To the left there was an open kitchen with grease smoke pouring out and it smelled like a greasy spoon. To my right was a counter to eat on and some tables to the far right. There was a guy reading a newspaper right by the door, shelly walked up to him and said “I’m shelly, I have reservations for 3 at 10pm.” The guy reached over and pounded on the wall across from him. The wall slid open and this really well dressed flamboyant gay guy said come on and practically skipped ahead of us down the stairs. This was already one of the coolest eating experiences I’ve ever had and I was just entering the restaurant.
So basically, this is just a front on the outside, a bodega style restaurant. Everyone I’ve talked to is not even sure how Shelly got reservations on such short notice… from what I hear it’s really hard to get in here. Think of a famous person and chances are they’ve eaten here. This resturant was also just featured on the HBO show “How to make it in America”.
So, the wall slides open, we’re following this guy down the stairs and we enter the kitchen, walk through the kitchen and we’re greeted with this really cool, dark, almost mexican prison style restaurant.
This picture doesnt do it justice… it was actually a lot darker, with more of an amber glow. The bar had over 100 Tequilas stocked… it was a total surprise after seeing the diner above. I have to admit, if felt pretty bad ass and makes you feel special to enter into something like this. You could tell this wasn’t just your typical joe hangout.
If you watch the episode of “How to make it in America” on HBO everyone in the show is sitting at that big table on the left. When we were there, some thuggish scary well dressed dudes were sitting there. Thuggish with enough class to pull it off, but you could tell if you fucked with them you were going to have problems lol. Again, these pictures are much brighter than it actually was, the setting was much cooler and dark/dank than this.
Ok, so this is where we sat, on the far left. Mikey sat in the little nook bench on the wall, I sat in the chair below the lamp on the left and Shelly sat in the chair by the bars. Notice how close that table is next to us. Not the one with people sitting at it, the one empty one next to ours. When we we’re there, there were people sitting there, you could hear their conversation.
We we’re seated and our waiter came over, Shelly ordered some shooters. You get three shots of your choice of tequila and 3 shots of a tomato juice mix to cleanse your palate in between. Mikey and I didnt know what kind of tequila we wanted for our Margarita, but Shelly wanted a beer. The waiter left and arrived back with the shooters and beer. Shelly had to use the restroom and when she got up she bumped the table trying to get out and spilt one of the tomato juice palate cleanser things. You can see how small the space between the tables is… Our waiter cleaned it up and brought us another one. When shelly returned, she accidentally knocked over her beer LOL… The waiter was getting irritated now, you could see it. He cleaned it up and went to get her another beer.
Mikey also went to the bathroom and this was one of the few rude experiences we encountered on the trip. This obviously fucked up “model” (anorexic chick) was in line behind mikey for the bathroom and told mikey she should go upstairs because this girl really had to go. Mikey said no thanks and tried to ignore this bitch. Then the bitch got in her face and said, you dont belong down here, and proceeded to act as if she had a chainsaw. She simulated starting it up and acted like she was cutting mikey with it making the sounds with her mouth. One of this chicks male friends came over and polgized (apologized) and tried to drag this crazy chick away eventually defusing the situation…
When the waiter returned with Shelly’s beer he asked what kind of Margarita Mikey and i wanted. I asked for a Grand Gold on the rocks. He gave me a bitch ass look and said very snooty “Um, Sir, we serve tequila and lime juice. Pick a tequila and we’ll put lime juice in it” – Something to that effect. This obviously pissed me off, so I told him. “Well, excuse me, I dont know how Yall (I turned the texas accent on) do it around here, but we do it different in Texas” As soon as I said that, his whole demeanor changed. The waiter said “No kidding, I’m from El Paso and my whole family is in Dallas” He went from total asshole to my new best friend. We talked about Texas for a while and what we were doing in NYC… he brought us some top shelf Tequila margaritas instead of the norm and was very attentive for the rest of the evening. He eventually sat next to mikey on the little bench on the wall and snuck us over Tequila shots. I think they were close to 100 bucks a piece, and he hooked it up. When we were done with dinner he actually asked us to stick around… but we we’re ready to move on. We bid our farewell and paid our 300+ dollar ticket and moved on. The food was pretty good too, but not for the price. But as anyone that lives in Texas know, it’s hard to top our mexican food…
This was a great experience, and it also goes to show how just because someone is an asshole doesn’t mean you cant find common ground. Just be yourself and if someone doesnt like it… that’s their problem. We ended up going out for a little while longer and then hopped the train back to Times Square. Everyone told us afterwards that we shouldnt have taken the train that late, but let me tell you… We we’re the ones people were staying away from on the train… we were so gone and having such a great time that people either stayed away or cut up with us. Great times.
-Timulator
COMMENT RULES: Dont spam. Dont flame anyone other than me... ok, have at it.
You know, I’m sick of following my dreams, man. I’m just going to ask where they’re going and hook up with ‘em later.
—
- Filed under:
- 01 Timulators Stories n Thoughts
Leave a comment