e a t e r y R O W

Hidden behind a secret door lies one of New York's most highly regarded bars. Please Don't Tell, or PDT, exists as an homage to Prohibition-era speakeasies. If no one told you it was there, you'd never know. There's barely a webpage. To get in, you call the number above and hope there's room. There's no sign, no plaque, no bouncer. The front door sits inside of an adjacent store (Crif Dogs hot dogs) and is camouflaged as a phone booth. Once inside the booth, you lift the receiver, hit the call button, and wait for the person on the other side to let you in. While the dress code at PDT is casual, the long copper bar, bare brick walls, and stuffed jackalopes evoke flashbacks to a time when even a homeless guy wore a suit.

PDT has all of about thirty seats, including the bar, and this means that it fills up fast. You have to make reservations and can only make them the day of, starting at 3:00 PM. This particular Saturday, by the time I got through the busy signals, it wasn't yet 3:20 and they were booked solid past midnight. And by the way, even though Bro and I got a reservation for a table, we still found ourselves sitting at the bar. Actually, we were glad to sit where we did. There was more light and we could watch the bartender, a tall, thin British bloke do his thing. It was like being in an episode of Poirot without the guy next to you getting mysteriously killed.

Although PDT is small, it's still relatively loud. Besides the Pink Floyd playing from the stereo, sound carries here. Don't think it's like a club where you have to yell for the person you're with to hear you, but you won't feel obligated to whisper.

PDT makes drinks the old fashioned way. They're a fan of bitters and don't do much in the way of fruit juices or new-fangled liqueurs. When I asked for something coffee-ish, but without Kahlua, I got the response "We don't do Kahlua." They do, however, do St. Germain elderflower liqueur. I know. I never heard of it either. Many of PDT's drinks are egg-themed, something that the vast majority of bars out there have no concept of. Virtually everything is top shelf. The generic stuff doesn't exist. I think the cheapest whiskey they had was Maker's Mark, and that ain't cheap.

That PDT was crowded even at 2am hardly surprises me. I mean, it's New York on a Saturday. But beyond that, once you're here you don't want to leave. It's comfortable, it's not prohibitively expensive, you can sit and talk with friends or your date without trying to impress anyone and you feel totally cool being just little ol' you. Given how tight it is, you might think that you'd become claustrophobic. I am willing to say that such a feeling probably won't happen. It almost feels like a big comfy blanket you drink in.

The drinks we had while we were there were but some of a long list of possibilities available to those who can read a menu or have an imagination. I'll list them briefly , but I won't get deep into any deep descriptions or give you much of my opinion.

The Coffee Cocktail, which has no coffee, but does have egg, was creamy and frothy and actually does taste like a coffee with too much milk in it. The No. 8, a tangy, bitter whiskey drink. Falling Leaves was a bitter spiced pink cocktail topped off with a star anise garnish. Finally, the Parkside Fizz was the best of the bunch, if only because it was the most playful, was like a twist on my old favorite, the mojito.

PDT does have a beer selection and we ended the night with two modest glasses of Captain Lawrence IPA before heading to the West Village, thusly giving our seats at the bar to another two souls in need of libation.

Since PDT is technically an offshoot of Crif Dog, and you enter not-so-clandestinely through the Crif Dog phone booth, Crif Dog hot dogs are the available solid sustenance. A little stainless steel hot dog door behind the bar opens and through it the Crif Dog cooks pass the dogs to the bartender.

841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
(212) 388-0030

I have to be blunt. I find Max Brenner's tagline "Chocolate by the Bald Man" irritating, to say the least. First, it presumes that I know who "the Bald Man" is (I don't, but somehow I doubt it's Kojak) and that he doesn't normally do chocolate, so I should ready myself for a treat. Second, it presumes that anyone would think that having a bald chef could possibly matter to their dining experience. It doesn't. The logo used to be "Chocolate Is Good For You", but some pain-in-the-ass, I'm-a-better-mom-than-you types, wringing their hands sobbing "Think of the children!" probably killed that one.

Anyway, pet peeves about dumb subheaders aside, Max Brenner's is one of the better dessert places around, especially if you're looking for a certain party vibe. And yeah, yeah. They have food too. Who cares? No ones going here for the chicken fingers.

Myself, D, and two friends wound up here one Saturday evening pretty close to midnight and still had to wait a half hour for a table. That gives you an idea of how packed this place gets. And it ain't small. If you don't want to wait for a long time on a weekend, you can either be very lucky or show up at 1am.

Chocolate, obviously, is the name of the game here. The front entrance area is a chocolate store with big stirring chocolate vats and shelves of chocolate candy. You can buy some to nosh on while you wait for your table, but I don't suggest you fill up on junk food before dessert.

We were all craving something desserty, having bounced across the city all night long, from Queens to Manhattan, tapas place to wine bar. Now we wanted sweet. And we wanted liquor. Max Brenner fit the bill as a dessert place that I knew also served drinks.

Speaking of which, the cocktail list was the first thing I looked for. And sweet desserts mean sweet cocktails. Unless you were like someone at our table and decide to order, of all things, a Pinot Noir. Don't ask me the vineyard. That particular choice of hooch aside, the rest of our drinks were all pretty damn good. I ordered a Brazilian Mocha Martini, which is roughly the closest thing you can get to a melted alcoholic chocolate bar without marinating a Hersey bar in a bowl of vodka. D got the Caribbean Mood Martini, an orange-mango screwdriver on steroids. And one of her friends picked out the Strawberry Mojito. Ahh... when you marry the deliciousness of a strawberry to the deliciousness of a mojito, you know you're in for something good.

We nursed these guys until our desserts came. And when they did, my God were they rich.

My entree, if you can really call it that, was the Munchies Waffles, two four inch waffles coated in whipped cream, topped with a scoop of vanilla and dark chocolate, candied hazelnuts, crunchy chocolate wafer balls and warm chocolate syrup. I'm a huge fan of waffles. I grew up on waffles. In fact, I was eating waffles way before I even tasted pancake. These were some good waffles. My only suggestion (and it's not a complaint) is that they serve this dish with maple syrup (not that fake Aunt Jemima crap). I followed it up with half of a Chocolate Pizza with Peanut Butter. Cookie-like dough, topped in chocolate syrup, marshmallow, candied hazelnuts and chocolate chunks. Seriously, this is enough for two provided you order nothing else. It's that heavy and sweet. Don't get me wrong, it tastes good. But, divided among four people, it still wasn't finished.

D chose the Eskimo Cone, two scoops of ice cream in a crispy sugared waffle cone, served with warm chocolate sauce, crunchy wafer balls and candied hazelnut. This is basically an ice cream cone in a stand. Yummy, for sure, but not something you can't get somewhere else. We also ordered a Hazelnut Cream Crepe, which I liked a lot. Actually, I don't think I've ever actually disliked anything here. The hazelnut crepe came stuffed with chocolate and hazelnut creama, toppped with ice cream, toffee coated banana, vanilla sauce and crunchy hazelnut bits. Finally came the Max's Three Layer Chocolate Concoction with Cookies and Peanut Butter. It is just like it sounds, but served in a beaker: chocolate cream, Oreo cookies, peanut butter, white chocolate and whipped cream. Plus, it came with biscotti. Basically, if you wanted to toss your week of eating salads and miso soup for lunch down the toilet, this is the way to go. I didn't taste it, but I'm sure it was good. How could it be bad?

620 Amsterdam Avenue

New York, NY 10024

Mr. Dogz had the Goi Cuon Tom, a shrimp summer roll. It's a cold vegetarian roll, filled with all sorts of goodies in a lettuce wrap and served with a plum sauce. This was great. In the summer, I can see this as the perfect meal starter on a hot day. Food critic that I pretend to be, I could simply not resist the Appetizer Platter for One. I'll break it down into the four appetizers I'd have had should I have everything piecemeal. Cha Gio, a crispy fried spring roll with a pork, shrimp, mushroom puree. I wasn't expecting the puree texture inside, but it worked and was very tasty. I'd order this again. Up next was the also very good Cha Gio Chay, a vegetarian spring roll. This was a completely different taste than the first spring roll was but was equally as good. This appetizer came with two dipping sauces, a sweet one and a peanut one. Both were excellently complimentary of this dish. The third appetizer on the plate was Chao Tom, a shrimp and a stick of sugar cane coated in batter and deep fried. I liked it. I was very different and I don't think I'd make a steady diet of it, especially with the sugar cane being so chewy, but I'd certainly recommend it and I'd certainly order it again. Up next are two standards that everyone who wants to try Vietnamese food orders so they can say they ate it but didn't have to stray too far from their American palate. The Bo Nuong Sate (grilled beef on a skewer with peanuts and a peanut sauce) and the Ga Nuong Sate (grilled chicken on a skewer with peanuts abd a peanut sauce). They were fine. But not more than fine. I wasn't drooling for more when I finished. Oh yeah, the appetizer also came with a little side salad.



The entrees we ordered, as I said, came numerous minutes apart for some reason. Once they did come, neither were especially impressive. Given the little red chili pepper picture next to each of our entrees on the menu, there was the implication that they were hot and spicy. In fact they weren't remotely so. I feel lied to. Had they not had that pepper symbol, I'd have ordered something else. Curry Bo was my dish. As implied by the name, it's a curry dish. I love curry. If I see curry on a menu, I always put it on the short list of things to pick. Hell, I ordered curry at Lounge 47, and that was a bar. But here, the taste was completely two dimensional. Dogz ordered the Basil Beef, which was better, but not by much. This dish was essentially beef with vegetables in a basil sauce. Both it and mine needed more flavor and felt like something that could have been spooned out a trough at a lunchtime hot salad bar buffet. One nice thing that the staff did was allow me to substitute the standard white or brown rice for the Coconut Sticky Rice at no charge. The best coconut sticky rice I've ever had was at a great place in the East Village called Blue Velvet 1929. It sadly went out of business a few years ago. This rice did not compare.



I may be alone here in my opinion about Saigon Grill. Mr. Dogz suggested the place and he said he usually likes what he gets. The people on Yelp seem to gravitate towards the good over the bad. Maybe if I lived nearby and wanted something that wasn't too expensive, but with the Upper West Side being such a trek for me, I can't legitimately see myself going out of my way again.