Flotsam and the One Man Band
- January 5th, 2009
- 5 Comments
Last night I met up with Daniel and Richard for a cocktail at Laurel Restaurant and Bar on, naturally, Laurel Street. The website said they were open nightly at 5pm and they had happy hour on Sundays. The reviews on Yelp were encouraging, too. It looked so adorable and I was really looking forward to checking it out.
So, we get there and it’s closed. But not “hey, we’re closed for a private party” or “due to the economy, we’re now closed on Sundays”. Just… closed. The “dark, silent, not answering the phone” kind of closed. Very odd. We decided to go to another place down the street in Little Italy called The Glass Door, which was at the top of the Porto Villa hotel. Lovely little place, but still pretty new. Great view of the bay and sunset, but the martini glasses were those kind without the stem — just this big clunky chunky glass. It kind of takes away from the martini-drinking experience if you ask me, but the martini itself did that in spades. It was way too ‘dirty’ and mine had large bits of olive floating in it. I declared, “Mine’s got flotsam!” I don’t know if Richard was so lucky to get chunks in his drink. Daniel smartly ordered an appletini which was apparently good.
We decided to go over to Bing Crosby’s where the blue-hairs were hoppin’ last night! It was wall-to-wall Geritol, but they were having so much fun it was more like American Bandstand. There was a guy playing Nat King Cole on the piano and singing when we came in. But then he kicked on a backup track and played along to My Heart Will Go On with a soprano sax. I swear, I thought my ear drums were going to burst from my ears. It was like a Kenny G singalong.
The man was talented, don’t get me wrong, but there was something really cruise-shippy about his whole schtick. After that he busted out an alto sax and played along to At Last. And then it was Robert Plant and the Honeydrippers version of Sea of Love. Lots of Billy Joel and then came the Creedence Clearwater Revival. 
Seriously?
The place is called Bing Crosby’s, for pete’s sake. I don’t deny the man had chutzpah and clearly was a gifted musician, but it felt more like one of those dueling pianos places instead of a fine dining lounge. But the crowd was salivating over him. Some old guy got up and rained dollars on the performer’s head at one point. He was hocking his CD on top of the piano… it was just… surreal.
Of course, that didn’t stop us from joining in on the rousing chorus of “Sweet Caroline”. We’re no fools.
A woman on the prowl sauntered up to our table at one point and asked, “Do you smoke?” We all responded that no, we don’t. She looked incredulous, “NONE of you smoke?” When we shook our heads, she said, “Well, that’s uh… very good.” and walked away. She trolled every table, it seemed like. Then later, another older cougar-y type in a big fur coat stopped by our table to tell us to “have fun, kids”. I’m telling you, the people-watching was ripe last night.
When we ordered our drinks, our server — a very perky, perky, perky woman I’ll call “Sunny” — informed us she was not only out of Grey Goose, but Kettle One, too. Very strange, considering the lounge is known for it’s martinis. But whatever, we got Belvedere and moved on with our lives. Then they ran out of blue cheese olives. Now, I realize this may be one of the most pretentious statement on earth, but you can’t offer blue cheese olives and then run out. Every single time I’ve been in there, I get one drink with blue cheese olives and then they tell me they’ve run out. You’d think if they always ran out, they’d plan accordingly.
I realize people are starving and there are holes in the ozone and gas prices are creeping up and it’s been like, a whole month since Lindsey Lohan did anything gossip-worthy, but if you’re going to offer fancy olives, don’t jerk a girl around.
