September 15, 2003
A Few Hours in the LES
Spent a few hours blasting through some of the finest that the Lower East Side has to offer, here is the quickness:
Schiller's Liquor Bar:
Rolled up at 1pm on a Sunday and got a table for two with no delay, full but no wait for Sunday brunch only two weeks in to a McNally restaurant. Not the greatest sign, but they'll make bank anyway. The fabled McNally attention for detail was on full display. Unfortunately this time the focus was on making a restaurant look exactly like by elementary school bathrooms. Then again I went to elementary school in New York City and the out of towners will probably be impressed by the McNally effort. Service was excellent, food was good and only overpriced by a few dollars. Go to Pastis instead.
Alife Rivington Club:
Finally made it to this over hyped marketing ploy. Everything I had heard made it seem like the selling sneakers in a English private club environment was a brilliant bit of irony. No its far scarier, its part a larger movement to turn hip hop into an aristocratic space. Scary. Sneaker hunting used to be about exploration, digging through shoe stores that time forgot for the gems. Now its about who you know, getting on the good side of the clerics at the snotty sneaker stores and kissing the right marketing droids ass. Wack. They had a couple nice shoes for sure, but this custom Dunks and Air Force's shit has got to go. Past its half life already, snake print or no, these are still out of date shoes. Fashion is rapidly approaching a point of no return, where trends are over before they start. Who want to bet on the life cycle of those mini fedoras replacing mesh on the hipsterati heads?
Guss' Pickles:
Still number one, the Pickle Guy is good, but Guss' is the best hand's down, legs spread.
il laboratorio del gelato:
God damn, this was unexpected. Pickles and ice cream, must be knocked up... No seriously this is the most subtle ice cream I've ever encountered in a store front. Slamming.
