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There’s something magical about Fridays. Colors are brighter, food tastes better, and the air is sweet with possibility. My friends and I had plans to go to a wine bar, but it’s the sort of wine bar that needs a reservation one week in advance. Another time, Otto.With our plans in disarray, we were forced to reconsider the night’s entertainment, and we were all in the mood for some alcohol. We all came to the same idea at roughly the same time – we would go Bar Hopping (a pub crawl, for you English readers). Bar Hopping is an ancient tradition going back to the dawn of man, where a group of nomads would go from place to place, sampling the different meads and ales in different towns. (The previous claim has not been researched and are probably false.)

The plan – eat some food, then go bar hopping. We ate at a delightful Sushi place on 1st avenue that I wish I could name, because it’s one of my favorite places ever. All of the rolls are half price (salmon roll for 2.50? I’ll take 3), and you can get a pitcher of Sapporo for nine dollars. Nine Dollars. My friends and I ate extremely well and split two big pitchers of tasty Japanese beer. The best part of the experience, even though the meal was no slouch, was the fried ice cream at the end. This is by far the best fried ice cream I have ever eaten, and I’ve had… let’s say 3. In most other servings, the ice cream is coated in a thin, crunchy coating and fried. Here, we have a core of soft ice cream coated by a layer of cake coated again by a crunchy layer, and fried. It has one of my favorite dessert elements, the play of warm cake against cold ice cream. The overall effect is not unlike ambrosia, and I ate it wondering when Apollo would come down with new robes befitting a god.

As we got up from our seats, we all received a simultaneous revelation; walking is hard when you’re full of sushi, Sapporo and fried ice cream. We walked from 1st avenue to 2nd, merrily singing Jam Project tunes to nobody in particular. We popped into a fairly generic bar with three beers on tap and a Big Buck Hunter machine, and promptly popped out. As we left, we noticed a sign across the street. It was… well, you can see for yourself. It had a mystic quality, compelling us to enter. We had to climb a long staircase to enter the bar, like pilgrims on a holy quest.

The bar was very, very crowded when we entered, and there were no fans anywhere on the ceiling. It was hard to breathe. I had Baltika 3, a lager bottled in St. Petersburg (Dave, a Guinness drinker, had Baltika 4). My friend Leon told us that there were 8 Baltikas, each darker and heavier than the last.I’m wondering where I can get the secret 9th Baltika that will teach me the meaning of life.

Eventually, we made it to the end of the space and had a seat. There were windows here, allowing the tiniest bits of air into the bar. The place was festooned (that’s right, festooned) with Russian paraphenelia, such as a faux-Soviet flag and Russian Winnie-the-Pooh. Leon (who is Russian) saw objects from his childhood on the walls, so it seems the decorator has succeeded in giving the place a Russian feel. It’s also very red.

Satisfied, we walked onward into the night. We entered a loud club, and promptly left – I was fine with the noise, but some of my friends weren’t and it wouldn’t be very nice of me to subject them to loud, obnoxious techno. After several blocks, we arrived at a charming Irish Pub. I had Smithwick’s, a dark amber beer that seemed legitimately Irish. We got comfortable booth seats and got to look at a large-screen TV showing awesome commercials (online degrees for cheap!) and a basketball game. The atmosphere was warm, rich, heavy with dark wood, and very friendly.

We walked south, and noticed that we were walking across Mott St. “Mott St?” we said to ourselves, “isn’t that where our teahouse and Chinatown Fair is?”. Arthur and I turned left and walked down Mott, while Leon and Dave went home. After some time, we arrived at the comfortable old teahouse with its charming tan bricks, quiet atmosphere and delicious bubble tea. It’s a great final stop on a bar crawl, a quiet place to catch your breath before heading home. We met up with our friends who didn’t go Bar Hopping with us, and we all left sometime after 1. A great night.

Can someone help me remember the name of that awesome sushi place? If you’ve been to any of the bars we’ve been to, let me know what you thought of them (reader participation!). I’m going to write something like this every Friday, since Fridays are great days for adventure. I might even go back in time someday and describe my trip to Barcade, or the night I couldn’t handle the spiciness of Jambalaya, if anyone wants to read about that.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 25th, 2008 at 6:56 pm and is filed under Adventure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.