 |
Way back in the day
there was a small, small man who bore an uncanny resemblance to a
once mighty, yet utterly despicable, leader of the great nation of
Germany. While he was missing the trademark Charlie Chaplin mustache,
he too had a speech impediment, a shellacked comb over and ruled over
his constituents with an iron fist. During his reign he decided it
would be super-cool to slowly throttle down their fun until they had
nothing. He threw a bunch of new no-fun rules and regulations into
the books under the umbrella of "quality of life" improvements.
This included shuttering all the porn palaces in Times Square, turning
all the strip clubs into luggage shops and rubber steak joints and
getting rid of lady's nights and the ever-popular all-you-can drink
specials. This robbed me of the one thing that made living on the
Upper East Side bearable. Although, it did allow me to get
a nice plate of clams casino while ogling a semi-nude Ukrainian defector
once. It also destroyed what was coined the "margarita brunch."
Always a popular occurrence (and an annual one for me) at another
West Village restaurant, Caliente Cab
Co., that margarita brunch was for years a deal that allowed one
to drink unlimited booze pretty much as long as one sat at the table.
Then the rules changed to become that you could order free drinks
as long as you had food still left in front of you. Then it turned
into three margaritas with brunch, then two and finally the special
went away all together. Enter year twelve or so of our annual tradition
and our new friend, Maracas. Gone is that joke of a mayor and gone
are the no-fun rules. Granted there is a sort of time limit of like
90 minutes on your drinks at Maracas, but that is not strictly enforced
and the drink menu includes regular and frozen margaritas, Bloody
Marys and mimosas. The staff is extremely friendly and keeps the booze
flowing, knowing full well that the more they sling, the bigger the
tip. Not saying this is the only reason for their cheeriness, but
someone somewhere made a smart choice to employ folks who understand
that the small groupings of people in the restaurant at 1:00PM on
a weekend are there to party. The burger I ordered was surprisingly
good, the chips are not bad and the drink itself made the ones at
Caliente taste like poop. The restaurant is decorated like the Cinco
de Mayo section of an Oriental Trading Company catalog, but it serves
its purpose and ads to the flavor. Try to get a seat by the window
if you're into the daytime option, as the small interior of the space
gets a bit dark. Oh, and look for the giant "Suck it Giuliani!"
written in thiick-ass magic marker on the men's room wall. [MF] |
Hipster Movie Reviews
Hipster Book Reviews
Music