Lately I’ve been going out a lot more during the week and doing a lot more day drinking on Saturdays and Sundays, which I can’t figure out if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I have mixed feelings about going out hard during the week. On the one hand, it helps to break up the work week, but on the other hand, I’m exhausted by Friday, especially knowing that I’m going to start drinking again on Saturday morning.
This past Thursday we had an impromptu roommate dinner, which we hadn’t done in a long time. Roommate M had a Groupon to this place Bento Burger, which sounded fascinating — Japanese burger fusion. Having never been to this place before, I of course immediately turned to the world wide web. Their website looked pretty awesome, but what was even more intriguing was what came up on Google Images for “bento burger.”
Frog Bento Burger
Monkey Bento Burger
Bear Bento Burger
Obviously I chose to believe what I saw on Google Images over what was on the Bento Burger website because that made more sense. I coordinated after-work meet-up with roommate M at King’s Cross next to B Bar with A, who apparently was holding a NYC Triathlon Meet Up event there and picks the weirdest bars to go out to. There were a total of 3 people there, including A, and neither of the other 2 were triathletes. This bar was also one of the saddest places I’d ever been to in Manhattan, where we were literally the only customers there. Upside? The bartender was so grateful he had paying customers that he got us all free shots of Avion Tequila (can you say… Entourage?), which was a great way to kick off our Thursday night. The weird part though was that the bartender encouraged us to try out Avion by — instead of taking it as a shot — sipping on it slowly and enjoying the flavors by mixing it with some iced water. What? Who was this guy. If you’re a tequila, act like a tequila. Don’t try to be a scotch. This made me hate Entourage even more.
After we were done with King’s Cross, it was off to anime-land to get our bento burgers. We arrived all excited, and when we finally found the restaurant, the first thought that crossed our mind was: rape town. I mean, we were right in the middle of nowhere East Village, and this restaurant was dark and hentai with the only people there being one bartender and one waitress (and they were WHITE). There were definitely no anime bears and frogs and hello kitties, and this place definitely wasn’t run by the Japs.
We sat down and ordered some drinks, which were actually quite delicious, and we started out with some calamari and tempura green beans, which were awesome. To make our meal even more enjoyable, Corona was having a promotion at this restaurant, and since we were the only customers there, they gave us free Corona after free Corona after free Corona. We win! After that we all ordered our bento burgers, and I ordered mine medium rare with Asian rice bun. I assumed that meant they were actually going to be buns that were made of sticky rice, but instead, it was just a burger patty, and a side of rice. Hmmm… regardless, it was incred.
My Burger Bento
After our burger experience, our next stop was Brother Jimmy’s for the Yankees game. I don’t give a crap about the Yankees but I do enjoy beer so our Thursday night continued and I stumbled home shortly after the Yankees lost. Successful Thursday night.
Poverexic in NYC 