If you drink good beer, Drop Off Service is worth your time. If you happen to be a reasonably-attractive lady who drinks good beer, there’s probably somebody here who wants to talk to you. I’m not promising unicorns and rainbows, but it may not be a particularly off-putting experience either. Someone may try to sell you a glow-in-the-dark toy, invite you to his Bushwick-tastic gallery, ask you about the finer points of hobbit fashion, perform feats like clicking his heels together in mid-air (harder than it looks, if you’re not a leprechaun), or apologize for his overly-sniffy French Bulldog. A dog is an ideal entrée if you enjoy random conversations, but don’t relish starting them, and at this bar canine wing-men are welcome, as long as they’re well-behaved. Another rare sighting in Manhattan watering holes–a solitary reader squinting at a book–is also a regular here. In fact if it weren’t for the variety of its patrons, Drop Off Service would feel friendly enough to exist a river removed from Manhattan. The fact that it has an impressive beer list, and a generous happy hour, lasting from 3pm-8pm (1pm-8pm on weekends), is the basis of its appeal. Many of the draft beers are $3 during the popular 3-8 shift, including Yuengling, Magic Hat, Fuller’s London Pride, and Six Point’s Sweet Action Ale. A pint of Stone Brewing Company’s Arrogant Bastard Ale is a steal at $4, there’s usually a cask ale for $5, and Delerium Tremens–a Belgian ale that hovers at about 9% ABV–will run you a reasonable $7.

If you get hungry, not to worry. Tuck Shop meat pies are available, or even better, run next door to Zaragoza for some tacos ($2.50-$3.00), and bring them back to the bar to fuel another round. These are not gourmet foodstuffs–Zaragoza is a hole-in-the-wall Mexican grocery with a microwave and few hot trays, and it can be hit or miss depending on what’s available that day. The other night, the amount of hot sauce on my spicy pork taco hurt my face, while a tamale ($2.00) was rather enjoyable. But $6 for a taco and a pint of Sweet Action, plus some free entertainment? Sure, I’ll be right over.

Drop Off Service
211 Ave. A between 13th St. and 14th St.
Mon-Fri 3pm-4am, Sat-Sun 1pm-4am

Zaragoza
215 Avenue A between 13th St. and 14th St.
Mon-Thu 9:30am-12am, Fri-Sat 9:30am-4am, Sun 10:30pm-12am

Six Manhattan chefs from six different well-regarded restaurants, each given a different liquor, and tasked to come up with a cocktail and a dish to accompany it. Add dozens of hungry foodies. Stir. Result? A hell of a fun night and a for-the-ages hangover the next day. This event, held on Jan 25th and coordinated by the Edible Magazines network (Edible Manhattan is my favorite food magazine right now–unlike Saveur, it’s locally focused, and the features are more digestible than those in ploddingly academic Gastronomica), was a follow-up to their Good Beer party in July. The tickets were $40, but since this included an all-you-can-handle cocktail throwdown with a magazine subscription to boot, I figured it would be well worth it as long as I ate and drank everything in sight.

The chefs set up tables around the perimeter of Almond Restaurant and guests freely wandered from station to station, eating and imbibing as much as they saw fit. We attempted small bites first: a celery root and apple terrine accompanied by an Orange Blossom (orange bitters, St. Germain, sparkling wine) was our first stop. Coming from Gramercy Tavern, it was a bit of a letdown. Moving right along, Ilili’s smoked venison carpaccio with hummus, apple, and cinnamon chile oil served with a Sidon Rose (vodka, green apple, rose syrup) was my first taste of venison, and a pleasant one. The next dish, Resto’s fennel and juniper lamb bacon with beet and caramelized yogurt, was my favorite of the small bites (although I went easy on the gin, green chartreuse, lemon, and peach Lambic concoction served with it, since gin is my nemesis).

The next two dishes were the highlights of the evening. First we braved the long line for a roasted sweet corn tamale topped with two succulent white shrimp, chipotle butter and avocado pico de gallo, paired with a powerfully tart and boozy La Sombrilla Roja (mezcal, campari, lemon, lime and grapefruit). Rocking Horse Cafe contributed this pairing, and I’m eager to try the restaurant based on it. This was followed by Il Buco’s persimmon, hazlenut and fennel salad, served with the il Buco sour (bourbon, persimmon, lemon, thyme, and Sagrentino Passito). I’d never eaten a persimmon before, which really upped the ante on a disarmingly simple salad. Il Buco is also now high on my list of restaurants to try. My favorite cocktail of the evening came next, the J.M. Ginger (rum, pear puree, ginger syrup, red wine sorbet, and a ginger-sugar rim). This was served with a crepinette of lamb neck, with celery root puree and kumquat-basil marmalade, from Almond.

After seconds of the tamales and J.M. Gingers, we sampled a tray of Roni-Sue chocolates but my stamina was fading by the time we passed the coffee and brandy pairing. After scooping up some free Edible magazines, we swung by the Heartland Brewery table to sample a hopped-up and super-malty Mr. Atlas Pale Ale and a chocolatey, pitch-black Sumatra Porter. This to my mind makes a better dessert than a wedge of pie, but perhaps it was fortunate that we were near the door, because it occurred to us to roll out of there before we could do too much more damage to ourselves. My guess is that the amount I ate and drank would have cost at least three times the price of the ticket in a restaurant, so all-in-all it was a bargain, despite a dearth of seating. I am never, ever mixing that many liquors together again, but I’m totally checking out the next Edible event.

Edible Manhattan
Good Spirits at Almond pairings
Almond Restaurant
12 East 22nd St. between Broadway and Park Ave.

You can eat poutine any time of year, but this Quebecoise treat tastes best when it’s really, really cold outside. I’m talking Montreal in January cold, the kind of frigidness that invades unusual places like your eyeballs and your teeth. Now that I don’t drive a car anymore, I don’t mind winter. I enjoy having an excuse to stay home, drinking dark beer and swaddling myself in layers of wool–the better to hide the gut I’m packing from savoring my favorite foods. Poutine is actually very simple–it’s just french fries and cheese curds, melted into savory gobs under a layer of steaming gravy. But it is somewhat tricky to execute. Proper curds are not easy to find, the fries should be fresh, the gravy ratio MUST be perfect, and a snowstorm backdrop doesn’t hurt either. Unlike your typical diner cheese fries, which fill you with self-loathing and regret, poutine, when it’s done right, warms your cockles, which I believe are located somewhere somewhere between your gullet and your spleen.

Poutine is pretty rare in the States but there are a few places in New York City that serve it. On Saturday, I checked out TPoutine on Ludlow Street, a relatively-new burgers-and-fries shop advantageously located in the booze-soaked Lower East Side. A classic poutine ran a steep $7.25, and came served in an appealing iron skillet, the curds just beginning to melt in their gravy bath. The cheese curds tasted authentic, and were generously-sized, although this possibly prevented them from completely melting. The fries, to their credit, maintained a fair amount of crispness, but the gravy didn’t taste much more than hot. A friend’s plate arrived with entirely too much gravy, which soon made the fries soggy, so it may be to your advantage to tell them to go light. All-in-all, this did a fair job satiating my poutine craving, but I’m told it’s not as tasty as the stuff you’d find in Montreal. TPoutine is open til 5am on weekends, so I could foresee a making late-night pit stop, but I’d probably keep looking for the really good stuff–my next destinations will likely be Mile End or Sheep Station in Brooklyn. There’s also decent and cheaper version available at Pommes Frites in the East Village.

TPoutine
168 Ludlow St between Stanton St & Houston St.
Tue-Wed 12pm-2am, Thu-Sat 12pm-5am, Sun 12pm-2am