Link: Beyoglu on NYCMag, couldn’t find real site
Menu: Dinner
Address: 1431 Third Ave., New York, NY 10028 at 81st St
Phone: 212-650-0850

Location notes:
Um, standard Upper East Side? Pretty nice, lots of restaurants in the neighborhood, fancy grocery stores, wine shops, etc. At a rather wide intersection right next to a very good Thai place also. It’s a very cozy feeling restaurant, dark and kind of candlelit in ambience. Very bistro like, old world glamour again, though with some modern twists. Either way, not too much to say about the location, pretty standard though.

Food notes:
Now we love Middle Eastern slash Turkish food. Excellent stuff, mushy, pita bread, mmmmmm good stuff. Pretty standard actually in presentation of the traditional foods, not like trying to be all fancy and mix it up, just good fooding in general. The portions are very big, they have a full bar, and Turkish beer! We didn’t try any of the alcohol because we didn’t feel like it really, but the other couple did and seemed to enjoy it. They have a meat and seafood special every day that changes, the time we went it was some kind of lamb and some kind of whole, baked fish. Sounded good but we didn’t order it. The idea though, is to go back :)

Foods tasted (taken from menu):

• Iskender Kebab – vertically grilled thinly sliced lamb & beef on a bed of pita bread, with yogurt, tomato sauce
• Karides Guvec – jumbo shrimp casserole baked with mushrooms, peppers, plum tomatoes & kashkaval cheese
• Vegetarian Platter – combination of our delicious vegetarian mezzes, including (from memory): Hummus – chick peas & tahini seasoned w/ cumin & garlic, Cacik – thick homemade yogurt, cucumbers & garlic, Patlican Salatasi – mashed eggplant salad, Kisir (Tabbuli) – cracked wheat (bulgur) salad, Zeytinyagli Ispanak – fresh spinach, shallots & dill sauteed w/ olive oil
• Some kind of dessert, don’t remember what it was, remember it was good, maybe a creme brulee?

Drinks tasted:
Some kind of Turkish beer that we didn’t taste? They had a good, full selection of stuff, and definitely worth trying the Turkish beer as its a specialty and all, just didn’t that day.

Other notes:
For the money, the service, the ambience, the location, and the general tastiness of everything, definitely a great place. I mean, entrees don’t break $20 at MOST, we’re talking just over $30 per person for dinner including large entrees, drinks, and desserts to split. The vegetarian sampler that we ordered comes in 2 different sizes, and there’s one for cold and one for hot mezzes. We tried the cold, we’ll try the hot next time. I think the best way to order is actually to take one of those large samplers to split, every one get an entree, split a couple of desserts, then drinks all around! Sounds lovely no? And definitely laid back enough to kind of just, hang out and relax through the night.

I’m also a big fan of this going out with other couples things :)

But the good way; I got to go to a club in China! For the first time! And though I groaned and griped the entire time saying I didn’t want to go, it turned out to be lots of fun! I went with XiaoXing, one of my only friends in China at the moment (damnit Maria, when are you coming back…). But uh, yeah, details about the club, because well, it’s not even close to anything like clubs in the States.

So they’re called something I can’t remember but I think is related to some phonetic rendition of the English acronym “DJ.” Apparently there are a lot of them and they’re really popular with the young people. I mean, it’s almost 4AM now and we left early, and when we first got there it was jammed packed. For some reason, it was called “GT Banana Club.” Yeah. And the Chinese name…”GT Banana Club” pronounced phonetically. Yeah. It’s tucked away next to some business center somewhere and the neon sign is half blown out so you really have to look carefully to make out the “banana” part of the name. When you get in, there’s these really crappy looking marble stairs that lead up to the first layer of the concierge. Here they take the cover, which wasn’t that much, somewhere around 50RMB as it varies depending on gender and day of the week. Up yet another flight of crappy looking marble stairs (I’m talking faux chic and glamorous here, kind of like porn shoot marble) and you get to the next layer of the concierge where they check your ticket and scan you with a hand held metal detector. The first thing you’ll notice when you get in, the fruit platters. Every single table has a huge, ornate, excessively decorated fruit platter. Don’t ask me why; apparently it’s communal but I’ll be damned if I touch it. But I later found out that apparently it costs money but they just leave them around and it’s just kind of, gross…I can honestly say, despite my lack in clubbing knowledge, that this was quite unlike anything in the US I’ve ever been to. The space was really big, with multiple floors, with multiple seating options ranging from huge and luxurious booths to tall round tables with stools to almost private room type booths. And again, don’t forget the fruit platter on every table top. There’s a bar, decently well stocked, though the whiskey is the highlight. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet but whiskey is the only liquor that’s managed to penetrate the Chinese market in any way. Go to any bar or restaurant and you’ll see at least a dozen different kinds of top shelf whiskey, but try to find any top shelf vodka or tequila and you’re fresh out of luck. Someone needs to market Patron here; they’ll make a killing. But uh…so we ordered two Long Island Iced Teas, not that expensive really, but that was the cheapest stuff on the menu. They had this massive VIP “Set” that you can order that costs over 15,000 RMB (2000 USD). Not sure what it includes, but at least a fruit platter and a couple of bottles of whiskey with mixer and a sort of private staff who takes care of your needs, and which apparently also includes some dancing girls. It was weird; next to where we were standing there were these two mid-30s looking men, one of whom was really fat and passed out, around this table arrayed with a massive fruit platter and multiple bottles of whiskey, while two staff girls danced for them and a male staff member poured more drinks. And the guy was passed out. Apparently that’s what happens; you can pay for people to keep you company, and I wondered how many of the girls in there were like that, because something seemed fishy given how ugly most of the men looked.

But that brings up the dance floor, which was huge, and which bounced! The entire floor bounced! Even if you didn’t want to dance yourself, just by virtue of standing on the floor you moved in rhythm to the music! Pretty neat! And there were lots and lots and lots of bubbles from a bubble machine :) And lots of fog, and a separate, smaller stage that lifted like 5 feet onto which at one point were three staff dancing girls, dressed all in white 1920s style flapper type dresses, dancing to a really crappy Chinese dance song. Speaking of which, the music was mostly European and American, except for the odd few of the Chinese ones that emulated those styles. I have a feeling these people have absolutely no idea what the words in the songs are because they’re all shouting along happily to “Fuck, fuck, fuck” and “Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn.” It’s like my staff singing along happily to “Like a Virgin” with absolutely no idea what the words mean! I’ve also never seen so many groups of the same sex all dancing together. Now, obviously, some of gay; there’s a lot of those in China apparently, or maybe I just can’t tell because men in China have a much closer and physical form of camaraderie than in the States. Either way, but where I’d expect men and women to be dancing together in the States, there were just large groups of men and large group of women, all dancing in that pseudo-inappropriate club sort of way with lots of grinding. And then there were the tall caps. What the hell is with the very tall baseball caps?!?!?!? I’d like to just chalk it up to Chinese people being weird, especially when it’s like, they have a limited exposure to Western popular culture, so whatever they do see or find they then emulate and apply a multiplier on in their own special “Chinese” way that just puts it all the more over the top. I mean, imaging a Chinese man, probably mid-20s, with an afro, and a massive, tall baseball cap sitting on top of the afro, that says “Let’s be Colorful” with “Colorful” written in rainbow colors…

In short though, it was a lot of fun, especially the music. It helps when I’m feeling down to just be so completely taken over by something; the massive vibrations of the bass literally shook me to where I couldn’t stand straight; when music is that physical it helps me to kind of forget everything else and just be literally moved by it. Maria, my dear, I miss you so much. I wish you were there; you’d enjoy it a lot. I’ve already got it in the plans for us to go there together :)

As far as the whole original point behind this blog goes, everything’s still on schedule. She purchased her gap insurance; hopefully everything’s all good with that and she’ll only need it for a month and it’s only if she needs it, catastrophes and the likes. I’m thinking she won’t actually need it, but it’s responsible. We perused the local bookstore looking for good travel books for China and specifically Beijing because I’ve only recently realized that I’ve never been there on my own before, per se. What I mean is, every other time I’ve been there has been with family, friends, etc.; people I felt a responsibility for, or that I was looking out for. I never did any ‘exploring,’ any ‘adventuring’ on my own. I don’t even know what China/Beijing is like at night because I’ve never been there and was out at night. It’ll be like seeing it all again for the first time, as sappy as that sounds. But I really do think that’s true. China’s also changed so much over the past couple of years, I imagine it’ll look quite foreign to me.

Ah but the point was that we were looking for books, and failed to find any. The selections were limited, weak, and geared towards…richer folk. People looking to experience something, and not necessarily from an integrated “I’m living in it” kind of sense but more in that, “Let’s see what the most expensive and hip bar is.” Not really my scene, literally. So I think I’m going to look online, see the larger selections available at the online booksellers and hopefully find something more appropriate. In the end, I think it may just come down to going there and living there and meeting the locals. I mean, I’ve lots of cousins, and some of them are girls, and some of them are single and in their early to mid thirties. They gotta go out right? They must know what there is to do in China/Beijing at night.

Alright. Back to babysitting the computer.