For round one of tackling the 7 x7 list, I did a quick scan to see what was near my office. Publishing types tend to be very easily persuaded into an afterwork drink. We seem to always end up traipsing to North Beach's 15 Romolo, which is happy-hour cheap, and has a knock-your-socks-off Pimm's Cup. I have a hard time asking any more of a bar. But as it turned out, there are a couple of top-notch cocktails we've been neglecting in our very own neighborhood. Like, within two blocks of the office. Outrageous.
The first was Bix, which is a seriously classy joint, with booths, atmospheric lighting, a second story, and live jazz in the evenings (although we were too early for that). We bellied up to the mahogany bar and ordered gin martinis and tartare. The salmon was fresh, lightly dressed, and exquisite, but I think the steak really stole the show, as the bartender makes a presentation of scraping up artful lines of mustard and capers and mixing it up in front of you. At $12 a cocktail it better be good--but it is so good! And the gin martini is a serious drink. Serious enough that after just one you'll get slightly lost going over to your friend's house for dinner. Your friend whose apartment you've already been to. . . twice. These things happen. I'd happily repeat the experience.
Comstock Saloon has such a good reputation we were a little worried about getting seats, but sneaking in on a Tuesday night just after work, we were able to nab a cushy booth. Comstock definitely plays up the saloon, with waistcoated bartenders, tiled floors, an odd contraption that turns the ceiling fans, and so on. Manhattans and pickled eggs are the recommended order, which opened my eyes to one of the beauties of the challenge, namely, that it's good incentive to try things that you'd never ordinarily pick out on a menu. I don't know about you, but I kind of doubt that pickled eggs with oyster sauce would have really leapt out at me. But delightful they were; crisp rye toasts, dollops of briny dressing, topped with thin slices of hard boiled egg, with a nice vinegary zing. The Manhattan is also a man's drink. At first sip, I was aghast that my grandfather drank these every day (against doctor's orders, if memory serves correctly). At second sip, you start to ease into it.
And now, just because I'm an English major and we can get away with this sort of thing, I'll leave you with a quote from Lucky Jim by the great Sir Kingsley Amis. Please note the common themes of mid-twentieth century charm, drinking, and pickles:
“Pocketing the eightpence change from his two florins, Dixon shoved one of the stemmed glasses along to Margaret. They were sitting at the bar of the Oak Lounge in a large roadside hotel not far from Welch’s house. From this seat Dixon felt he could recoup himself a little for the expensiveness of the drinks by eating steadily through the potato crisps, gherkins, and red, green, and amber cocktail onions provided by the ambiguous management. He began eating the largest surviving gherkin and thought how lucky he was that so much of the emotional business of the evening had been transacted without involving him directly.”
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