EATS & DRINKS

★ BEST TRANSFORMATION OF A FIGHT-PRONE DIVE BAR INTO A MEATPACKING DISTRICT SUCKPIT 

Village Idiot Becomes Gin Lane

355 W. 14th St.
(betw. 8th & 9th Aves.)

212-691-0555

The stench hit you like a baseball bat. It was a retch-inducing cocktail of stale urine, puke, sweat, liquor, old smoke and testosterone. That was the perfume of the Meatpacking District’s infamous Village Idiot, where men drank $5 domestic pitchers, puked in the bathroom, then brawled for the honor of slutty women dancing on the bar.

In summer 2004, the fun and fights ended, and the Village Idiot underwent a miraculous transformation. The bar was gutted like a fish, the scent somehow eradicated. The honky-tonk ghosts were buried; in their stead arrived a jazzy cocktail joint outfitted with a 100-year-old oak bar, leather banquettes, servers in silk ties and $14 cocktails created by drink master Dale DeGroff. Fisticuff-prone frat boys are gone, replaced by blandly beautiful high-rollers with pockets as deep as the Atlantic Ocean.

The Idiot’s scent once brought us to tears. Now we still cry when we pass the Idiot, not for the smell, but for what the bar has become.

★ BEST FORGIVABLE SCHTICKY “CONCEPT” 

Peanut Butter & Co. 

240 Sullivan St. (betw. W. 3rd St. & Bleecker)

212-677-3995

Since we live in New York—land of $1 million studio apartments—we’re suckers by nature and we pay absurd premiums for just about everything: clothing, shelter and food. Like all Americans, we’re shill-paying suckers for nostalgia; perhaps like the Japanese, we crave cuteness, too. Both are in ample supply at evergreen storefront Peanut Butter & Co., where the neat, lo-fi ’50s-style white Formica design (replete with, yes, vintage period ads) replicates June Cleaver’s kitchen. Completing the fantasy is the menu: All sandwiches (served with potato chips and carrot sticks) and desserts are peanut butter based, fluff optional. Please. Can’t we make this stuff at home? But wait—this Elvis (PB, banana, honey and bacon) is really good. So is the spicy Thai peanut concoction. And everyone who works there is really nice. We feel good. We’re suckers and proud of it. Pass the milk.

★ BEST SIGN THAT THE PABST APOCALYPSE IS COMING 

$5 PBR at the Meatpacking District’s 5 Ninth

5 9th Ave. (at Gansevoort St.)

212-929-9460

In this misguided millennium, Pabst Blue Ribbon has gone from blue-collar intoxicant to unduly hyped beverage. Cans fly from coolers at dive bars and neighborhood taverns because, while PBR is no great taste, it possesses one delicious quality: Drank cold and quick, it buzzes drinkers for a few bucks. Then bar owners latched onto the trend, and prices shot up like a thermometer in August. Two dollars gave way to three dollars, which led to four dollars. For a can of beer. Shit, a six-pack of Pabst only costs $2.99 at most bodegas.

But the surest sign of the PBR apocalypse, much like the apocalypse in general, is found in the Meatpacking District’s 5 Ninth. At the bar, drinkers can sip $6 pints of Brooklyn Lager, double-digit cocktails and, most distressingly, five-buck pints of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Is it too late to start drinking Genny Cream Ale?

★ BEST FOOD TREND TO TURN YOU INTO A HYPOCRITE

Overpriced Cheap Eats

For all our foodie contempt—with their use of the word “celebrate” in place of “eat,” their willingness to shell out $20 bucks for what their mothers called chopped liver and their general wine-sniff-before-you-quaff policy—no one will deny that everyone loves a good bite to eat. Those of us who covet the diamond in the rough, hole in the wall restaurant as if it were a secret akin to Osama’s secret location, might have a problem with top New York City pseudo-celebrity chefs bringing (relatively) cheap eats to the masses. That is, until you sample what they’re dishing up. 

Thomas Keller set up shop in a mall of all places. For less than 20 bucks at his Bouchon Bakery, you can dine on the world’s best tuna fish sandwich and an improved version of the classic Cinnabon. At Shake Shack, courtesy of Danny Meyer (whose name is attached to too many restaurants to name), you can stand in line for an hour to get the best just-under-$4 shake you’ve ever had. Tom Colicchio added ’wichcraft to his long list of Crafts, where chefs at multiple locations have mastered the art of sandwich-making—so much so that you might be tempted to memorialize your lunch in a museum, though the marinated white anchovies, soft cooked egg, roasted onion and frisée piled on country bread may get a little stinky. And then of course there’s Dave Chang’s Ssäm Bar, a cross between Chipotle and his first Pan Asian baby, Momofuku (you know, where you get those Oreo-cookie-sized, unbelievably yummy buns with Berkshire pork for a tenner). Yes, our favorite greasy spoon will always hold a certain charm that comes from the feeling that we personally pioneered it and the lack of a mosh pit-type crowd. But these new restaurants, which get more lovin’ than a high-priced hooker during happy hour at the W Hotel, make us eat our words and sate our appetite for street food with style.

★ BEST TIME-SUCKING WAY TO BUY A STICK OF BUTTER

Magnolia Bakery

401 Bleecker St. (at 11th St.)

212-462-2572

Ever since Carrie and Miranda drowned their man-troubles in cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery on “Sex and the City,” this little place has become more popular than a cheerleader on prom night. It might as well be in Times Square. And while the folks who wait in line for half a day around the corner form Magnolia’s may be dressed in vintage Patricia Fields instead of the typical tourist garb (stirrup stretch pants and Keds, natch), they’re still getting swindled. We are talking about the treaties that used to be served up at school bake sales, right? Wasn’t that a quarter back then? Spending 20 gazillion bucks for a sickeningly sweet little cake that takes longer than a Chipotle burrito to digest is just plain ignorant. For a $1.50 a pop at Sugar Sweet Sunshine on the Lower East Side, you can get a great cupcake without all the hype. There may be a little bakery intrigue going on here—the owners of Sugar Sweet are both ex-Magnolia pimps—but they’ll give you everything you’d ever want out of a baked good, and you won’t have to wait in the street for your taste of nostalgia.

★ BEST MEAL FOR LESS THAN $10 

Fried-chicken dinner at Pies ’n Thighs

351 Kent Ave. (at South 5th St.)

347-282-6005

Our cholesterol level spontaneously skyrocketed while pondering Pies ’n Thighs’ artery-clogging grandeur. At this southern-fried gem—located beneath the Williamsburg Bridge—$8 buys the finest finger-lickin’ meal this side of Colonel Sanders. Three fist-sized, fryer-fresh chicken drumsticks and breasts are served, suntan golden, alongside a flaky biscuit and a luscious seasonal side like cornmeal-battered fried green tomatoes. The chicken is crunchy, juicy and less greasy than a glistening weightlifter. We’re often compelled to rip into drumstick flesh with our canines and incisors, like feral, famished animals. One bite turns into three, and soon we’re gnawing on bones and washing down chicken bits with a cool Arny Palmer: half iced tea, half fresh-squeezed lemonade. It’s a disgrace to leave Pies ’n Thighs as anything less than a clean-plate-club member, your belly protruding, globe-like, while you moan with sated bliss.

★ BEST PSEUDO-MAFIOSO BAR TO BUY $1 BUD DRAFTS

Jr. And Son

575 Metropolitan Ave. (at Lorimer St.), Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Jr. and Son embodies Williamsburg’s Eastern Bloc pallor. Drab brown brick. Terminally gated windows. And, outside the door, shifty-eyed men with fleshy stomachs suck on cigarettes, keeping tabs on their impossible shiny automobiles.

This bar may be the equivalent of a porcupine, but hidden beneath the quills is a kick-ass drink special. Inside the narrow bar—which is classy enough to put ice in the urinals—broken men jaw in Brooklynese about gambling while staring at black-and-white photos of dead boxers and Frank Sinatra. We like visiting Jr. and Son not for the ambiance, but for the beer. Every night (well, when the bar adheres to its schizophrenic hours), seven-ounce goblets of Bud and Michelob Light cost a single crumpled dollar. Every third brew is blissfully on the house, no matter if you’re a regular or some interloper into a world you shouldn’t understand.

★ BEST PRE-THEATER MEAL THAT’S NOT A “RESTAURANT ROW” TOURIST TRAP 

Del Valle 

665 10th Ave. (betw. 46th & 47th Sts.)

212-262-5510

We don't judge those who’ve paid three figures to see Tarzan. God loves us all. We do judge those who kick off their evening of high-flying theater at Olive Garden, TGIFriday’s or any of the un-franchised, uninspired and overpriced boites dotting so-called “Restaurant Row.” We prefer to go wild like the King of the Apes himself and burn some calories walking west until we hit the quiet, no-frills (but spotlessly clean) Del Valle. With a deli/takeout counter and dozens of tables (with waitress service), Del Valle turns out vibrantly fresh, authentic Mexican feasts that go eons beyond Tex-Mex: piquant Pipian de Pollo (chicken in green pumpkin sauce), crackling fried pork, smoky Platos de Barbacoa (barbecue platter). Whatever we get, there are always startlingly complex sauces, salsas and guacamoles (the kind they charge $12 for at Dos Caminoes) to liven things up. With most lovingly prepared items under $10, the final bill might be shy of the per-plate charge at the rubbery-chicken Row-talians down the block. Olé, indeed. 

★ BEST RESTAURANT TO BLOW YOUR WAD IN A SEC 

Per Se

10 Columbus Circle (betw. 58th & 59th Sts.)

212-823-9335

“Per se” is Latin for “by itself,” an apt name for Time Warner’s gourmand paradise. But bring your gold card or bags of cash. The damage: $210 for a nine- or seven-course meal (lunch or dinner, as well as a special vegan menu) including service. Wines range from $14 a glass to a magnum of Château Pétrus at $9,075. The digs are roomy and chi-chi, a mere 16 tables overlooking Central Park and a working fireplace. The staff is young and friendly, but a bit unpolished—no surprise since chef-owner Thomas Keller has been called the nastiest boss in NYC. 

Per Se is a food orgy, a Disneyland of a Roman Saturnalias. Sample the Jurassic salt from Montana—it’s at least a million years old. The grub is served in scrumptious mini-courses all featuring pure and exquisite ingredients. Try the caviar, foie gras and Kobe beef. There’s an occasional nod to Americana with desserts made of Snickers bars, coffee and donuts. Or forego food and booze it up at the bar—no Red Stripe, but cocktails go for $10-$20. The bartender even concocts his own tonic water for the G&Ts. Dudes, fugghedabout: No sneakers or jeans allowed. And guys, this place is old school—wear a jacket.

★ BEST OVERPRICED COCKTAIL EMPORIUM TO IMPRESS THE PANTS OFF SOMEONE 

Pegu Club

77 W. Houston St., 2nd Fl.
(betw. Laguardia Pl. & Wooster St.)

212-473-7348

Once ladies and gents reach the legal tippling age, it’s difficult to impress ’em with alcohol. That’s like taking a porn star to a strip club for a birthday present.

Not so at Pegu Club. At first blush, it’s yet another overpriced pox on New York City nightlife. Fancy drinks and fancy décor means exclusionary atmosphere, right? Not at Pegu. The cocktail lounge employs a refreshingly laissez-faire door policy: first come, first served and no reservations. Whether you’re Daddy Warbucks or a Starbucks barista, Pegu is everyone’s hangout.

Little expense has been spared (like a grocery store of fruit and herbs, as well as custom ice-cube makers) on these Gatsby-era concoctions. The buttery Fitty-Fitty martini and ginger-beer-based Jamaican Firefly are ambrosial indulgences, made classier by table-ready tinctures of bitters and other aromatics available for drink-doctoring. They’re like Spanish Fly for jaded drunks.

★ BEST REASON TO GET DRUNK ON 300 BEERS

Brewtopia

Consider Brewtopia the all-star game for beer drunks. Each fall, more than 100 globe-spanning breweries converge upon the Chelsea Piers or the Javits Center and dispense enough carbonation to kill Charles Bukowski in his prime. Every mega-microbrewery and boutique beer is on tap: Belgian beauties from Portland and Maine’s Allagash are offered beside knockout-strength India Pale Ale from San Diego’s Stone Coast and Turbo Dog brown ale straight out of New Orleans. Pay a nominal entrance fee, and you’re gifted a five-ounce taster glass. It’s a bottomless chalice that’s best governed by buffet rules. Resist the urge to gorge on the first brew you spot, instead of perusing and pondering the bounty. Skip watery lagers and instead indulge in ambrosial Belgian ales. And inky stouts. And hoppy IPAs. Public drunkenness has never tasted so right.

★ BEST “SHUT UP ALREADY ABOUT SHAKE SHACK” BURGER 

JG Melon 

1291 3rd Ave. (at 75th St.)

212-744-0585

If we wait in a Shake Shack line for two hours, we are serious about burger-love. But we’re also seriously tired of the over-hyped burger debate—it ain't all about Shake Shack or Corner Bistro! For a fix of beef-on-buns that might be even more sublime than those Magnolia Burger Factories, we hop the 6 Train and go uptown to 77th street. (Did you expect Brooklyn?) There, past the jappy girls thumbing through the racks at Scoop, we squeeze into the red-checkered, beer-happy clamor of JG Melon. At this pub, the perfectly-compact, juicy-but-not-sloppy burgers could almost be picked up with one hand; except we like to grope these babies with both paws, pausing to schnarf a lightly crisped cottage fry and check out our reflection in the shiny bun. And that first taste is never ketchup, cheese, onion or tomato—it’s beef, with seasoning and pungency so perfectly calibrated you'll weep. Take that, Shack.

★ BEST BROOKLYN BAR 

Moonshine

317 Columbia St. (betw. Woodhull St. & Hamilton Ave.), B’klyn

718-422-0563

Brooklyn’s best bar returned from the dead. Last century, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook day laborers drank away their aches at Rocco’s, a beer-and-sandwich saloon a few feet from the future Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. When the ’hood turned to crud in the ’70s, the bar sat shuttered until Nick Forlano unearthed a lush’s Pompeii. He spit-shined the joint into Moonshine, a pitch-perfect drinkery we love more than our girlfriend. Why do we adore Moonshine? Could it be the bucket of four canned crappy beers (including 14 offerings like Schlitz, Old Milwaukee fave, Genny Cream Ale) for $5? Or the all-we-can-eat peanuts, with shells we toss on the wood-planked floor? Or the always-open pool table? The Johnny Cash jukebox? Did we mention the hand-lickin’ bulldogs that roam the bar? And the backyard garden featuring a grill-your-own-meat policy? Grill. Your. Own. Meat. Consider it Moonshine’s way of saying “I love you.”

★ BEST QUEENS BAR 

Water Taxi Beach

New York Water Taxi parking lot (betw. Borden & 2nd Sts.), Long Island City

watertaxibeach.com

Water Taxi Beach is a sandy refuge like Amanda Lepore is a woman: That is, not really. The spring-to-Columbus Day bar sits on an industrial slip of Long Island City waterfront, miraculously transformed into a beach thanks to 400 tons of Clorox-white Jersey-shore sand. The scene does the sand proud. Sangria sippers and Pabst chuggers gather beneath a corrugated-tin roof, while volleyballs fly through the air and bikini-wearing women absorb ultraviolet rays. East River-fronting picnic tables offer perfect perches for gazing at the Midtown skyline—through a gated fence, unfortunately—and scarfing down freshly grilled burgers. Though the Water Taxi is a pain in the rumpus to reach by anything but Water Taxi (the dock is next door), that just augments its awesome factor. It’s like a vacation in NYC (or staycation, a typically insipid Time Out–coined phrase), minus the black-sock-wearing tourists. Sadly, there’s one snafu: no swimming allowed.

★ BEST BRONX BAR 

McGinn’s Tavern

4352 Katonah Ave., Bronx

718-655-8992

Throw a rock on Katonah Avenue in the Bronx and you’ll either hit a bar or someone coming out of one. This eight-block strip is home to some of the last legendary Irish pubs in the borough. You could say you’ve seen one Irish pub, you’ve seen them all, but we’ll give McGinn’s the nod because it’s been around the longest and the atmosphere is fairly inviting. You don’t get the hard glare upon walking in, and the prices are Bronx cheap: $3 a pint and $3 for a shot.

To add to the décor, they have a pool table and a dartboard that can be used by all. But when we ponder the kick ass jukebox—with everyone from the Pogues to Bob Marley on it—we can almost forget we’re in the Bronx. But if that doesn’t work, keep the drinks coming and eventually you will.

★ BEST BUG JUICE COCKTAIL

Cool Juice

541 Lexington Ave.

212-755-1200

Who has time to eat, and why should we when we can gulp our sustenance down in small green batches of wheat grass, or an XL Vente medley of orange, carrot, cantaloupe, sweet potato in either a juice or yogurt base. In case you haven’t noticed, with juice bar prices as they are, it doesn’t leave much left for pretzels, so take your pick: a thick shake with an extra blast of protein, or a Salisbury steak. If you chose the former, head to Cool Juice where the crowd is like-minded and the straws are plentiful, not the thin kind that fray, leaving tiny cuts on your tongue. 

★ BEST-TASTING DRINK THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT WILL BLIND YOU

Ass Juice at Double-Down Saloon

14 Ave. A (at Houston St.)

212-982-0543

It’s the color of a nuclear-power-plant accident and features the consistency of mostly melted Jell-O, but you’ll be intrigued by the Double Down Saloon’s Ass Juice. The East Village dive’s namesake cocktail is a viscous, brown-green mixture of about a dozen liquors, none of which the bartenders will reveal. It’s stored in a clear glass bottle. No label. No identification. “It’s Ass Juice,” a blonde bartender told us one night. “That’s all you need to know.”

Because our curiosity will eventually kill us, we anted up for Ass Juice. The bartender smiled and poured an overflowing shot. Green dribbles spilled on the wooden bar. When the wood didn’t burn, we knew we were safe.

“Come on, don’t be a pussy—drink it up,” the bartender said in Double Down’s charming fashion. We did … and we were amazed. The drink kicked like a mule, sure, but it tasted like Jagermeister’s educated cousin. “What’d you think?” the bartender asked. We responded the only way we could
to Ass Juice: “Bottom’s up.”

★ BEST FREE WEINERS 

Rudy's Bar and Grill 

627 9th Ave. (betw. 44th & 45th Sts.)

212-974-9169 

We've heard about hot dog vendors gouging tourists with $6 weiners, and that dawgs are the next street food to go gourmet (foie gras replaces sauerkraut?). But when short on cash, when Coney Island feels too far away (when doesn’t it?), we head to Rudy's. At this jam-packed dive (with pleather banquettes and a garden out back), the beer is always cheap, the rock is always raucous, and the hot dogs are always free. Sort of: we do have to beckon the fake-grumpy bartender and ask for it. (Some New Yorkers are too proud to ask for free stuff, only pilfering free samples left anonymously on countertops.) He’ll oblige, retrieving a wiener from the heat-lamped Ferris Wheel you’ve seen in movie theaters, even dressing it with the red or yellow condiment of your choice. Smooth and sweet-salty with not much of a poppy skin, it’s as good as any dirty-water dog—brilliant with beer and the $0 sticker.

★ BEST FOOD ON A STICK

La Esquina

106 Kenmare St. (betw. Lafayette St. & Cleveland Pl.)

646-613-7100

This former diner turned trendy taqueria has covered all of its bases with three restaurants in one. The fashionable still tackle one another to gain entry to the door marked “Employees Only” and descend to the swank speakeasy. On the other corner is a café with margaritas, an impossibly unattainable bookshelf and art for sale. But we still prefer the bare-bones counter serving up the best tacos, tortas and Mexican street food in the city—especially the roasted corn. Yes, the city’s ubiquitous street fairs offer up their corn equivalents, but La Esquina’s skewered and blackened version rises above the pabulum. It arrives in a modest paper carton, covered in cheese with a side of lime and still only costs a couple bucks. Once you’ve started, other stick food will never seem quite as sweet. 

★ BEST BAR TO GET DRUNK WITH HOMELESS WOMEN AND THE GHOSTS OF OLD SOLDIERS

Seventh Regiment Mess Restaurant & Bar

643 Park Ave., 4th Fl. (betw. 66th & 67th Sts.)

212-744-4107

The Seventh Regiment is a peculiar blip of common sense. This Upper East Side armory once housed moneyed-Manhattanite soldiers who quelled the bloody Astor Place riots and guarded the remains of Abraham Lincoln. These days, the armory serves as a women’s homeless shelter, while another floor contains one of the city’s most mysterious, clandestine bars. After signing in with a security guard, we’re ushered to the regiment’s fourth floor—aka the Seventh Regiment Mess Restaurant & Bar. It’s a ghostly Bavarian beer hall two bowling lanes long, outfitted with antlered moose heads and super-sharp sabers.

We like to order a stiff Jack and Coke at the typically empty bar, then smoke in the Rainbow Room. It’s a cigarette oasis grandfathered in under Bloomberg’s smoking ban. We puff smoke circles at the pictures of bygone soldiers, silently thanking them for the sacrifices that made our addictions possible.