Lipstick fixes
east side observer
BY ARLENE KAYATT
MAC’s got LIPstick... Could be confusing — there’s a City Cinemas near the corner of 86th and Third on the east side of the street. “Mean Girls” or “Wonder Woman” could be playing there. Not. So why the throngs of “girls” crowding and lining up in front of the theater? Look a little closer and you’ll see that there’s a MAC cosmetic boutique several steps from the cinema. On this Saturday morning, girls were lining up for free lipstick samples. And if calling the women waiting “girls” offends, sorry, but that’s how MAC promotes their products — and with alliteration such as Fashion Fanatics, Mischief Minx, Prissy Princess, Bold and Bad Lash. And another “B” combo, “Basic” and the B word. If that turns you off and you’ll do without a freebie lipstick, go west to Sephora and the soon-to-open Ulta for your lipstick fix. They may be more to your taste. Optional or optics. You pick.
Mooch and Moore — Can’t make some things up. There on West 44th Street in the Theater District, on the same street, within feet of each other, you have the perennial Michael Moore performing nightly in his one-man anti-Trump rant, “The Terms of My Surrender,” at the Belasco, and you have the so-not-perennial Anthony Scaramucci spinning his hurried departure from the Trump White House at his Hunt and Fish Club. Maybe Moore and the Mooch can break bread at Mooch’s restaurant, and maybe the Mooch can get some face time on stage at the Belasco? Could lead to dinner cum theater performing arts... Oh, and talking about not making some things up? “1984” is playing at the Hudson Theatre several doors down from the Mooch’s watering hole. Hoppy days ahead.
City streets, circa now — Manhattan streets are alive with all manner of juice bar, salad spot, wine bar and wine store. In the ‘70s and maybe ‘80s calling an establishment a “juice bar” meant that it didn’t sell alcohol but allowed for quaaludes on the premises. Not today when a juice bar is what is sounds like, a place to get all manner of fruit juices stirred, shaken, whipped up, you name it. On the East Side I’ve seen Juice Press, Juicery. Liquiteria, among others. The salad spots include Just Salad, Sweetgreen, Chopt, Dig Inn, Garden of Eden, Red Olive, Amish Market. Some salad bars are self-serve. Others have counters with servers doing the plating. Wine bars are popping up all over — on the UES there’s the newly opened Siena; the not-so-new Kaia; the casual coffee-wine-beer lounge, DTUT, where you serve yourself. There’s the wine stores. Some sell have craft beers. Some have tastings — Mister Wright, Bottle and Soul, Garnet, Dr. Wine (appropriately located, but unaffiliated with, the Hospital of Special Surgery).
Speaking of salad bars — In my memory at least, THE salad bar extraordinaire in its early incarnation was the one at Whole Foods at Columbus Circle in what was then known as the Time Warner building. The bar was spread across a large section of the lower level with fruit aplenty, crisp salad makings, hot food, cold food, ethnic food, desserts. If you can envision any other manner of food, it was probably there along with a soup bar with at least eight choices. Now Whole Foods itself is spread and spreading across the face of Manhattan — from the recently opened megastore opposite Bryant Park to the newly opened Lenox Avenue location, which turns out to be a favorite if for no other reason than they serve a divine cup of Mexican Oaxacan coffee you can drink in the inside café with a view of the street life along the avenue. Heavenly.