Alchemist

Embrace the Disco Nap!! Take a 20 or 40 or 60 minute nap some time during the day. I don't know why the 20 min. increments work so well but go with it. Let youself relax, find a very dark room and let yourself go. You owe it to yourself. Use coffee carefully it can really mess up your sleep. a couple of cocktails is all right but more will also mess up your sleep. Enjoy the night. Shopping at 2am rocks, never having to travel during rushhour is the best.

I have found there is a huge difference in taste if you fill the glass with crushed or cracked ice then pour in the anise flavored liquid than if you just educate the glass by it's self. The anise incorperates into the drink much better. Especially if you are using the green fairy (with a proof of over 150.) it really needs a little extra water content. Come to think of it all rinses seem to work better with ice.

I make a Hendricks Martini with paper thin slices of cuke soaked in salt, A little olive brine, dry vermouth and a couple of drops of rose water. It really just brought out the cucumber instead of turning it into a dirty martini. Some people will call hours before they show up to request I get some cucumber macerating.

When you are wandering around Chinatown, and you want a light bite, (and a break from Kosher and Halal) go to Big Wong. It's on Mott just south of Canal. Look for a big yellow sign on the West side of the street. It's Communial seating so just hold up a finger for each person in your party. The Roast Pork on rice is Amazing, ask for a couple sides Of Ginger scallion sauce It's so good you will want to drink it. The Dumpling House on Eldridge Btw Broom and Grand. Have the Fried Pork Dumplings. Yeah, that's f#%kin' New York. You got a problem with that?

Here is a situation that happens sometimes that I find rather frustrating. Four or five people will be dining and when it comes time to pay the check most will pay cash and one or two will pay by card. The customers will say here is seventy bucks put the rest on this card. Then due to drunken math, money flying this way and that, and a need to rush off to the next place, the bill is paid but no tip, or a tip only on 1/4th or 1/5th of the check. I have tried fanning out the bills underneath the receipt, taking the cash away, everything I can think of, and it still happens. Not all the time but more than it should. I agree that tourists know that they should tip, as someone said they’ve read the guidebooks, they just don’t. I don’t “forget” to take off my shoes when I should in other countries, or offer my left hand to people, or other things that are offensive to the people who are being my hosts. Could we publicly cane people who don’t tip? Like that kid in Singapore???

I allways offer a taste if some one is eating at my bar and the wine is being paired with a specific course, especialy if I reccomended the wine in question. The only obnoxious thing is if I open the bottle in front of some people they get all freaked out and say "I only wanted a glass". But most folks really like the extra little ritual. It's easy to do at the bar, but I can see it could be a huge pain in the ass for a server on the floor. If you ask nicely most servers will bring you the bottle to look at so you can recognize it in the future.

I must add that at New Lok Kee have the Cantonese Lobster, the salt and pepper scallops, the chives, and the stuffed peppers. Yum. The peppers are some what like the lottery, some are scary hot others not. Enjoy.

I don't know, but it reminds me of James Thurber's line, "One martini is alright, two is too many, three is not enough." ← Which is like the Dorthy Parker line. I like too have a martini, two at the very most. After three I'm under the table, after four I'm under my host.

A really really cold beer, sweating on it's coaster, and a rocks glass with two NBA players fingers of Methuslem, or Havana Club if I am really, lucky. It may seem pleabian, but after making hundreds of cocktails a week, coming home and whipping up a Sazarac just isn't what I want to do. I thank god everyday I'm not a Gynocologist.

I usually use the expensive/hard to get spirits for the fitst one or two cocktails, then when my head and tastebuds get a bit fuzzy i switch to less expensive/easier to get spirits. But never do I make that last step down to liquor one can buy with money one can panhandle in three hours on Ave A and 7th St. Is it worth while to put that Havana Club in your sixth Daq? This I guess woould be the all night fight against the Law Of Diminishing Returns.

There is the Sugar plumb. THANK YOU M&H Tequila, Pomagranete molassas, lime, dash of simple. I just came up with one that is; 2.0 oz. tequila .75 oz. simple .75 oz.lime And then take chipotle, tomato juice, black pepper. Shake first three. Strain into a glass that has a pool of last three at the bottom. Garnish with a sugar coated lime.

Ok so how about a New York Sour. First you must wander about the city, have a slice, get a great espresso, dodge a crusty gutter punk from Conn. Then get. 2.0 oz. Rye .75 oz. fresh lemon juice .75ish oz. simple syrup 1.0 large egg for the white only. A drizzle of big bold red wine. Put the rye, lemon, simple, and egg white in a shaker. Shake WITHOUT ICE. Add a few chunks of cold, sticky ice, shake like you f*%king mean it. Strain into a glass of your choice. Make sure you get as much froth out as possible. Drizzle the old grape juice on top. It will sink to the bottom, or you will be making Jackson Pollack proud with the art on top. The Espuma should stick to your upper lip in a way that makes Guinness and milk jealous. Very good on cold nights. Actually good on all nights

I have just had “one of those days”. You know what I mean, where it seems that the universe is hostility indifferent, and the City is malevolent. It is as cold as the depths of a Milk and Honey freezer, the MTA is as hostile as a drunk frat boy, and there has been an APB out to all retail staff to treat you as shabbily as possible. The list in my pocket, as long as the walk from St. John of the Devine to the Isle of Staten, was impervious to crossing out as I am to offers for a free Cosmo. So the violet hour crept upon me like a lynx on a bunny. I huddled into my collar, breath like cumulous clouds, trudging down Hipster Highway only to see a little black sign proclaiming salvation. Guinness…the very name warms the cockles of my soul. I step into a cozy little pub, bottles of scotch hold court, and beer taps, top-heavy jesters jumping for attention. Laughter melts into the tin ceiling, while secrets and bitterness sink through the worn floor. I am home, at church, in my lover’s arms, and there is a dancing fire in the corner. I take a stool, not knowing that bad metaphors, similes and analogies await me at my laptop when I get home to write about this. I order a Pint of Black and delve into the Times. There must have been a hole in the bottom of that glass; it was empty before I could shake the chill from my fingertips. Another Mother’s Milk was ordered. The leader of the free world looked like a monkey. Then I saw a bottle that made the Holy Grail look like cheap tin chalice made in summer camp by a six year old. Ok, that is slightly hyperbolic, (very possibly the wrong word) but they had a rye that is old enough to drive and be drafted into the Army. “A wee dram of that with an odd number of ice cubes, and if you could hand me the bottle of REGANS ORANGE BITTERS #6, well, my day will go from Syisiphus and his rock to Hercules at the Aegean stables.” Damn I wish I said that. Molten whiskey, knee deep to a hampster is served to me in a lovely global glass. A bottle of exotic, wicked, bitters thunked just to my right. One dash in the glass, the rye seemed full of promise, like a cheerleader on prom, night, two dashes (the ice melting, taming the bronco cooped up the bottle) and I was so confused I had to step outside for a cigarette. I ordered another beer (one that was like making love on a beach, so as not get in the way of my Cocktail) and got rid of the Guinness. The third dash of bitters… I am sitting in Calcutta on a street corner, a banana leaf as my glass, Rye is my Mutton, and the bitters are the masala. The glass has dreamy, cool legs, long enough to be a Rockette. I ask The Barkeep to hit me with a lemon twist. The essential oils scurry across the top of the drink, then settle, like the oil stains in a 'doublewide" drive way. The brightness of the lemon grapples with the other flavors, but instead of a scrum it becomes an ménage a trios. Since it seemed like a good idea at the time I order another of the same. But this time I have the Barkeep rinse the glass with Grand Ma. The burnt Carmel, orange and luciousness of the brandy waft like a San Francisco fog (oops another bad simile) into my probiscious. So, Start with A great Rye then, Add bitters, then some sort of twist, Orange, flamed orange, lemon, um, not sure what else. And then a whisper of a sweetener, Benedictine, Chartreuse, Grand Ma, Cointreau, Apple Pucker, (Just kidding) and enjoy. Compliment this with a beer of modest, unassuming quality. I guess this is just an old fashioned built in stages. Fun nonetheless

You must have the waffle dessert. It comes with Bacon! A dessert with bacon!!! Brilliant. Two little hot waffles, hazelnut butter, milk chocolate sabayon, home made marshmellow, and BACON! Did I mention that it comes with bacon?

Try the Cantonese lobster and the salt and pepper scallops. And the chives, and the stuffed peppers. Sun Luck Kee Burned down. I allways wondered how the saved the menus. There sure was a lot of gambeling going on late night at the old location...

I don't belive that there is any pineapple in the original. I think that people some how morphed it into a frou-frou drink because it has an exotic name, like the Mai Tai. Like Singapore it's self This drink is more utilitarian. There is probably an analogy about canings and happy endings, but it escapes me right now. 2 oz. gin 1/2 oz. Benedictine 1 oz. lemon juice 1/2 oz. cherry brandy 1/2 oz. simple soda to top lemon twist to garnish forgot to add the last bit.

Corps reviver #2 Breakfast martini Twentieth Century New York Flip Apple blow fizz Anything with gin and egg white Edited to add some.

I guess we can share all sorts of things, but please use discretion, many things that happen at Painters, stay at Painters.

Or people who show up at resturants after having froliced in fountains of eau de toilette. Edited to correct a bone headed mistake

Haagan daaz coffee ice cream, soft, then dip in Nacho cheese Doritos. Best eaten as a teenager while, um, keeping the glocoma at bay.

I would have to diagree with the statement that NYC is less dressy than other parts of the country. I was just in a large Metropolitan mid western city, and was amazed with the almost complete lack of style. The amount of overly pleated kacki shorts/Tevas/sunglasses still pushed up on a bad haircut (at night) in a nice resturant was appaling. I know it's hot, god invented linen, and seer sucker. There are times when we all just want to dress for comfort. Fine don't go somewhere nice.

At work I order the mashed potatoes with home made ranch dressing on them. Kraft Mac and sleaze with Herdez salsa.

The Smash is half a lemon, muddled mint, .75 oz simple, 2.oz I like rye cause a little less sweet. Shake strain, yum

I have found if you trim the bottom of the herbs stored in water, especially when you first get them, just before you put them standing up in shallow water. Then every couple of days, take just a little of the healed part off. I have been told that warm water is better, but have never done a side by side comparison.

It's a fact that FoH staff are going to judge you the second you walk into every establishment. You shoes, hair cut, watch, cloths, and how you hold yourself. The judgement will change throughout the night. Your speech, how articulate you are, how sophistacated your ordering is, a guy who orders a Negroni will be seen one way, and a guy who orders an apple martini will be seen another. Maybe this is wrong. Maybe we will all be going to hell for the hundreds of thousands of snap judgements.