Filed under: Do, Drink, Love | Tags: Alphabet City, AYCD, benefit, booze, charity, cocktails, disaster relief, East Village, fundraiser, Japan, New York Loves Japan Punch Party, open bar, Summit Bar
Tonight, the New York Loves Japan Punch Party is going down at Summit Bar in the East Village/Alphabet City from 7 pm to 11 pm. Sample some tasty boozy punches and whilst listening to the grooves of DJ Kimiko Masuda and supporting Japanese disaster relief efforts. A $20 donation gets you unlimited open bar servings of six Japanese-inspired punch cocktails, and all proceeds benefit the Japan Society’s Earthquake Relief Fund.
Sponsors include Beefeater Gin, Pernod Absinthe, Tequila Corazón, Leblon Cachaça, Belvedere, Sailor Jerry Rum, The Tippling Bros. & Classic & Vintage Artisanal Spirits Portfolio.
Drink: The Summit Bar (East Village/Alphabet City) 133 Avenue C (between 8th and 9th). New York Loves Japan Punch Party from 7 pm to 11 pm today, Monday, April 11, 2011.
Filed under: Do, Drink | Tags: Ace Bar, Alphabet City, bar games, beer, darts, East Village, free, pool, skee ball, whiskey
Sometimes it’s just not enough to walk into a bar and order a drink. Sometimes you just want something more. Maybe it’s an early in the game date and you’re not sure if you’re going to have anything to talk about with said date. Maybe you go out every night and the thought of another bottle of wine and another drawn out conversation about life is making you nauseous. Maybe you just feel like being a little more active than sitting on a barstool, but you don’t feel like dancing or yelling over crowds of people. Maybe you just like winning, and you feel like kicking ass and taking names.
Enter Ace Bar in East Village/Alphabet City. You’ll walk into what is a rather expansive space for a bar in the EV. Bar to your left, arcade games and booths to your right. Sidle up to the bar and order a drink. For a $10 deposit, you’ll be handed a set of darts, and as long as you don’t lose them, you’ll get to play for free.
In the back room, there are two dartboards, two skee ball machines, and two pool tables. Skee ball is $1 a game. Just remember that it’s easy to blow through a game in 30 seconds, so bring lots of dollar bills. If you can hit certain scores, you can win free beers. I think it’s MGD or something like that, but you’re playing for victory, not for microbrews.
I don’t remember how much pool is, but I think you pay per game rather than per hour (I could be wrong).
Drink: Ace Bar (East Village/Alphabet City) 531 East 5th Street between A and B. New York, NY 10009. (212) 979-8476.
Filed under: Do | Tags: bar games, bars, beer, darts, dive bars, EV, LES, NoHo
There’s something intensely satisfying about hurling a sharp, pointed object at a wall while intoxicated, especially when said activity is socially sanctioned. Enter: darts. Socially sanctioned throwing of sharp objects while intoxicated!
But where does one find a dartboard? I did a quick search on Yelp, and thought I’d share my downtown finds with you fine folks. Aren’t you lucky you read this blog, you fun seeker, you?
East Village:
- Ace Bar 531 5th between A and B
- Duke’s 129 Ave. C at 8th
- Doc Holliday’s 141 Ave. A at 9th
- The Edge 95 3rd St. at 1st Ave.
- The HorseBox 218 Ave. A at 14th
Lower East Side:
- Stanton Public 17 Stanton St. between Bowery & Chrystie
- Welcome to the Johnson’s 123 Rivington between Essex and Norfolk
- Boss Tweed’s 115 Essex at Rivington
NoHo:
- Bleecker Street Bar 56 Bleecker St at Crosby (near Lafayette)
- Puck Fair 298 Lafayette at Houston
If you want to find bars that have dartboards in other parts of the city, you can do your own, customized search on Yelp.
Don’t hurt anyone!
Filed under: Do, Love | Tags: camera, GF1, Lumix, micro four thirds, Olympus PEN, Panasonic, photography
Olympus is offering a manufacturer’s $75 instant rebate on its E-PL1 micro four thirds camera (with zoom kit lens) through June 19th, 2010. You can buy online from Ritz Camera with no sales tax and free shipping ANYWHERE, which means that for $525, you can get yourself a m4/3 camera with zoom lens, in-body image stabilization, built-in flash (which can be manipulated as a bounce flash), and some really cool art filters (diorama and pinhole are my faves). The E-PL1 is on sale for $524 on Amazon (I got gold, but available in black and slate blue also), but depending on what state/city you live in, you might have to pay sales tax (in NYC, for example, it’s 8.875%). Amazon is best because they ship extremely quickly and have an awesome return policy, but if you are in an Amazon sales tax district and want to save $46, order on Ritz (but be prepared for slower shipping). If you’re old school and want to play with the camera first, all certified Olympus dealers will be offering the rebate through the 19th, so get thy ass into a store, stat.
Originally, I had purchased the Panasonic GF1 with the 20mm pancake lens, but returned it due to a defective LCD. Upon further consideration, I realized that because I am upgrading from a point and shoot, not coming down from a DSLR, the E-PL1 meets all of my needs and still leaves me room to grow. I like the way the GF1 feels in my hand better, but the E-PL1 is sturdy enough, and while the video is not as strong as the GF1, stills are my primary focus. I also like the punchiness of the Olympus JPEG engine and I don’t want to shoot in RAW all the time and be forced to do post-processing, and I like the in-body IS because that means that I am not limited to purchasing lenses with OIS (the Panasonic m4/3 cameras lack in-body IS so their lenses have OIS, but are also more expensive). I also like that I can angle the flash upwards to create softer light with the E-PL1, unlike the GF1 whose flash is too rigid to angle differently once popped up.
The GF1 with the zoom kit lens is going for $743.95 or so, and with the 20mm pancake is going for over $808.66, plus tax (usually free shipping). For the E-PL1 at $525 with free shipping and no sales tax, I was able to splurge on an additional lens, and I selected the Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 for $375 on Amazon (it was $360 at the end of May; I bought it for $374.99 two days ago; it’s now going for $383.02!) so my E-PL1 could be slim and sexy, just as it was meant to be. So, for about $100 more than I paid for the GF1 + 20mm pancake, I got the E-PL1 plus zoom kits lens and 20 mm pancake. I’d say that’s a pretty solid deal. (I could have gotten the 17mm M. Zuiko pancake lens for $250 and saved $100 but decided to treat myself to the Panny.)
The chief complaints against the E-PL1 vs. GF1 are slower autofocus speed, lack of extensive exterior manual controls, lack of built-in EVF (same w/GF1) and crappy external EVF, and sub-par LCD. I concur that the LCD is rather disappointing, especially since there is no EVF alternative built-in, and the external EVF alternative really isn’t very good (after some in-store testing). However, I think that for a photo enthusiast like me who is upgrading from a point and shoot, the autofocus is actually quite fast, there are more than enough buttons to work with controls, and wow, the pictures look amazing compared to what I’ve been coaxing out of my P&S.
I have read a gazillion reviews, and finally I thought, to heck with it. One guy said, “The best camera is the one you have,” and something clicked for me. There will always be some newfangled camera coming out onto the market, and every camera is going to have its pros and cons. The key is to be honest about your priorities and find a couple that suit you, then to pull the trigger and decide that you are going to master your camera, that you are going to learn to maximize its potential, that you are going to have fun no matter what, and to realize you can always upgrade later.
I CAN’T WAIT to get my hands on this thing!
Filed under: Do | Tags: camera, E-P2, E-PL1, food photography, GF1, Lumix, micro four thirds, Olympus PEN, Panasonic, photography, travel
I’m having second thoughts.
As it turns out, my brand new GF1 camera is defective. The camera itself is beautiful, and what few pictures were taken before the screen went all wonky were gorgeous. Eye-openingly gorgeous. But after firing off a few shots at dinner tonight, the LCD screen got all fuzzy and staticky – like when you have no signal on an analog television – before going all crazy with the red and purple highlights and this is the picture that it took (picture of the screwy screen taken by my trusty BlackBerry camera):
Fortunately, Amazon has an excellent return policy and I’m sending it back tomorrow for a full refund. But now I am agonizing over whether I should re-order the same, or if I should mix things up a bit. The GF1 with the 20mm pancake lens is $808 on Amazon. The other contender in the Search for Mel’s New Camera was the Olympus E-PL1, which has better high ISO output, has a great JPEG processor, in-body image stabilization and cheaper lenses, and goes for $549 with a 14-45 mm zoom kit lens. If I really want the Lumix 20mm pancake (which does not have in-lens IS), I can get that for $360 more, and pay about $100 more in total ($808 vs. $909) to have a camera with in-body IS and two M4/3 lenses.
But the GF1 is faster, has a better autofocus, great HD video… It is extremely well-loved in the reviews, and often compared to the more expensive big brother of the Olympus E-PL1, the E-P2 ($899 with 14-45 mm zoom kit lens). But the E-PL1 doesn’t have the little red light sensor on the front so apparently auto-focusing in the dark is near impossible.
I want to be able to shoot food, portraits, and travel photos.
How do I choose?!
Filed under: Do, Love | Tags: camera, food photography, GF1, micro four thirds, Panasonic, photography, travel
Aren’t you sick of looking at my sad, dark little photos of various things I’ve made or eaten? I am. That’s why, after much research and thought, I got me a new camera. Hello, lover.
Meet my Panasonic Lumix GF1, outfitted with the 20 mm aspherical pancake lens.
The most important things for me were quality (duh), a compact size (I would feel uncomfortable about taking pictures too conspicuously at restaurants), portability (if a camera has a gigantic lens and doesn’t fit easily into my purse, I won’t take it everywhere), and versatility (I want to be able to take portraits, landscapes, macro, etc.). For all this, I decided the best option would be to go with a smaller micro four thirds lens system camera. I had narrowed my selections down to the Panasonic GF1 (the GH1 is out of my price range, and I didn’t want to wait for the G2 to come out) and the Olympus EPL-1. After a harrowing research and review period, I ultimately decided on the GF1 because the 20 mm pancake lens is so darn sexy. I couldn’t resist. With the 20 mm lens on, my camera is 4.5 inches wide, 3 inches high, and not quite 3 inches deep. It will fit into any of my purses with the exception of my tiniest clutches, and I won’t incur the wrath of various restaurant staff as I fuss and zoom.
Some reservations I have about the GF1:
- There is no string attached to the lens cap. Knowing me, I will lose that lens cap.
- There is no built-in viewfinder. I’m going to Guatemala in July, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to see anything on the LCD screen in bright sunlight. We’ll see how it goes.
- Lack of in-body image stabilization means I have to have a really steady hand… which is not something I have. The Panasonic lenses have compensation to make up for lack of in-body IS, but as a result, are more expensive in turn.
- High ISO output not as strong as Olympus, which has a bigger sensor. Hmm. This could be bad for taking macro photos of food in low-light situations.
- The GF1 takes considerably better pictures in RAW than in JPEG, and I have zero photo processing experience.
- I don’t actually remember very much from my photography class in college. F stop what? Oh, wait. This is not a reservation about the GF1; this is a reservation about my photo-taking capabilities.
I am going to be learning how to use it for the next few months, and I hope that ultimately, its use will result in a more beautiful blog. In the meantime, if you continue to see grainy, dark photos, it’s probably because I am still trying to use up all the photos from my now-old Canon point-and-shoot (which has served me well, and will still be my carry-everywhere camera) while I figure out how to work this thing.
Wish me luck!
As such, I’ve been contemplating ways to shed the cream and butter winter weight and trim up a bit. Memorial Day Weekend is just around the corner and then it’s rooftop barbecues and tanning in the park and the pools (yes, the POOLS in NYC!) are opening soon. Apparently, Groupon thought lots of people might be in the mood to get their beach bods ready. I received an e-mail today inviting me to buy a one-month gym membership to Crunch for $39. $39! A Crunch membership usually costs over $100 a month, so this is a great deal. Of course, it’s limit one per person, new members only, and they will probably harass you to join at full price after your one-month trial. The upside is that you pay no membership fee, it’s cheap, and it’s a one-month commitment so if you lose your drive to work out after a month, you’re not locked into a recurring monthly fee.
I’ll be splitting my time between the Lafayette and Union Square gyms, but there are seven Manhattan and two Brooklyn locations participating.
Deal ends at midnight tonight. Buy here.
Full disclosure: if you make a Groupon purchase through the links above and you haven’t before, I get a $10 Groupon credit. However, I am not posting so I can accumulate Groupon credits; I really think this Crunch deal is a good value and it is perfectly timed.
Filed under: Cook, Do, Eat | Tags: baked, Butter Lane, cooking classes, cupcakes, East Village
This, friends, is the vanilla French buttercream icing from Butter Lane, aka the best cupcake icing in the world (although I’m also a huge fan of the “Moose” at Sugar Sweet Sunshine – maybe they’re actually tied for best cupcake icing in the world).
Apparently, Butter Lane gives cupcake baking and decorating classes on Monday evenings in their cute little East 7th St. shop from 8-10 pm. They provide all the ingredients and equipment, you just bring your pretty little self. I would love to be able to recreate this oozy, sugary goodness at home. How great a date would this be?! $50 per person, unless you organize a big group of your own, in which case you should call ahead about the price. This would be so much fun on a bachelorette weekend! I wonder if they do any boozy cupcakes…
Classes are available on the following dates, current as of this week:
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Monday, April 5 (8-10pm) *Sold Out*
- Monday, April 19 (8-10pm) -Just Added-
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Monday, May 3 (8-10pm) *Sold Out*
- Monday, May 17 (8-10pm) -Just Added-
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Monday, June 7 (8-10pm)
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Monday, July 5 (8-10pm)
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Monday, August 2 (8-10pm)
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Monday, September 6 (8-10pm)
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Monday, October 4 (8-10pm)
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Monday, November 1 (8-10pm)
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Monday, December 6 (8-10pm)
Fill out the form at the bottom of this page to sign up for open spots the classes listed above or e-mail hello@butterlane.com to inquire about group rates and special dates.
Happy cupcaking!
Filed under: Do, Eat, Go, Listen, Watch | Tags: beer, burger, CA, California, El Taurino, Father's Office, hiking, Hollywood, Hollywood Bowl, hotel bars, LA, Los Angeles, Malibu, Mondrian Hotel, poolside bars, rooftop bars, Roscoe's, Runyon Canyon, Santa Monica, SkyBar, Standard Hotel, Tacos Por Favor, Venice, Viceroy
With the advent of good weather, I’ve been thinking about Los Angeles a lot lately. I especially miss the Mexican food there, and the fact that people don’t look at you like you’re from another planet if you wear PJs to brunch.
Every so often, friends will go to visit LA and they ask me what they should do an where they should eat. Here are my favorites: (I hope that they have held up with time!)
The Getty Center
Places to go an things to do:
#1. The Getty Center. Art (notably, Van Gogh’s Irises) and a sweeping view of Los Angeles, a breathtaking garden where you are allowed to picnic, $6 to park the car, otherwise free. One of my absolute favorite places to spend an afternoon on a clear day. Now there is also a Getty Malibu.
#2. Hiking in Runyon Canyon if you’re into celebrity sightings and sweaty, scantily clad Hollywood types working out.
#3. Snag cheap tickets ($6-$10 for a seat in the back!) to catch a show/concert in the open air ampitheatre Hollywood Bowl. I highly recommend the Sound of Music singalong! (Also saw Buddy Guy, Etta James, John Mayer, Oasis, etc.) Bring your own wine and food and make it a picnic.
#4. Visit the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).
#5. Experience the meat market and sh*t show that is Q’s / Cabo Cantina (Brentwood).
#6. Pack a picnic and head over to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery (sounds morbid, but it’s really not) to watch a Cinespia movie screening against the wall of a mausoleum. Starts May 2010 and runs through the summer. You can pay your respects to Marilyn Monroe.
#7. Santa Monica pier in the evening. Ferris wheel and cotton candy. Seriously, what girl doesn’t like that?
#8. Go shopping on Melrose (if you want to buy things you can afford) or on Rodeo Drive (if you would rather gaze lustfully at things you can’t afford).
#9. Get all shishi and go out at night to the SkyBar at the Mondrian (West Hollywood), the poolside bar at the Viceroy Hotel (Santa Monica), the rooftop bar at The Standard Hotel (downtown LA), celeb-filled Chateau Marmont (Hollywood – an Andre Balasz property, it’s hard to get in unless you are a guest!) or Bar Marmont (less exclusive than inside the Chateau), or Teddy’s at the Roosevelt (Hollywood).
#10. Check out the boardwalk at Venice Beach to see some real characters. Skateboarding dogs with green mohawks, rollerblading electric guitar guy, man in Speedo with balls, Muscle Beach, etc. To see surfers, you’ll have better luck in Malibu.
What to eat:
#1. Tacos Por Favor. Cheap, delicious, can’t find it anywhere but LA. I strongly suggest the hard taco with carne asada and any of the burritos, though I favor the shrimp burrito (chock full of avocado and rice and cheese). The pickled carrots, onions, and jalapenos are delicious, and the spicy red sauce has a hint of cinnamon.
#2. Bay Cities Deli. The most delicious Italian deli sandwich you will have in your life. There’s something about the bread that is TO DIE FOR. Be prepared to wait in line, or order ahead. The Godmother is highly recommended.
#3. Father’s Office, Santa Monica (not the LA location). The Office burger… I still dream about it from time to time… Perfect burger on crisp fluffy bun topped with blue cheese and arugula. Don’t miss the sweet potato fries and the garlic aioli dipping sauce. No ketchup here. But trust me, it’s better that way. Also a huge selection of microbrews – Chimay on draught.
#4. In-N-Out burger – I’d get a double-double protein style with fries well done animal style and a neopolitan milkshake. Before you go, read up on the secret menu so you know how to order like an INO pro.
#5. El Taurino, downtown LA. Their carne asada burrito with special hot sauce and horchata always makes me happy.
#6. Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Duh! Be like Snoop Dogg and eat there.
Filed under: Do, Go, Laugh, Listen, Watch | Tags: cheap, deals, Emmanuel Chabrier, French, L'Etoile, Lincoln Center, Madama Butterfly, NYC Opera, opera, Opera for All, Partenope, Puccini
Madcap kings! Mistaken identities! Fortune tellers! And it’s in French!
Thanks to the generosity of the good folks at the NYC Opera running the Opera for All program, I scored $25 orchestra seats (normally priced at $75 to $145) to see Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’Etoile tonight at the Lincoln Center. It’s a NYMag critic’s pick, and it sounds like it’s going to be a rollicking good time (or as rollicking as possible for opera).
Photo credit: Sara Krulwich for The New York Times
I’m so excited!
To score your own $25 orchestra seat tickets to upcoming shows of Madama Butterfly or Partenope, visit the Opera for All website and enter promo code OFA1 or call 212.721.6500. Tickets for same-week performances go on sale at 10 am. $6.50 service and handling charge per ticket if you purchase by phone or online. Performances for this season run through April 18th before going on hiatus until the 2010-2011 season begins, so get on it.
