Mona's Apple: The Final Week

Day 13 of the T-90 Project:

I was supposed to meet a couple of friends for wine at Riposo 72 but my favorite wine bar on the upper west side was closed for a private party. So much for getting my fix before I left! Instead we moseyed down to Bin 71. I am not a fan of the place at all, and especially not after the night we had. It's cramped and always a zoo so forget about personal space. To make it even sweeter, we had a major D-bag sitting next to us who kept trying to contribute to the conversation and it was driving me nuts.

D-bag barely let us sit in the two seats next to him because he had a blind date... in an HOUR. That was the first offense. He then gets up, leaves his stool, pays, disappears for what we thought was good for about 30 minutes, someone takes his seat, he comes back, shows the guy in his seat the sip of beer he has left (lucky it's still even there) and kicks the guy out of his seat. I was mortified. The poor scrawny Brit vacated the seat reluctantly then we had to sit next to D-bag. Again.

His date finally showed up and I wanted to tell her to run for the hills. Their "date" lasted about 30 to 40 minutes. Once again we thought we were rid of him for good. But oh no. He pretended to leave the bar with his plastic bags of god-knows-what with the girl, only to come back and repossess his seat with a jovial, "Well that was a disaster!" The only disaster I could see within a 5-mile radius was him. And more amusing than how terrible he was was the fact that he thought we were all buddies and on his side. Piece of work.

Day 12:

It was only fitting that I had one more blow out party at the New York Athletic Club before I left. FunnyGirl rallied the swim team for happy hour and we drank and partied until it was black out hour at the Tap Room. I will miss everything about the club: the staff, Luis the bartender, Hasan the gym-keeper, Laticia and Jackie the locker room attendants, my 70+-year-old badminton-playing boyfriends (to whom I've promised multiple postcards from Los Angeles), Daniel and Paul at the front door screaming, "There she is!" and last but not least my teammates and the Irishmen who run the pool with as much pride as the president runs the U.S.

Day 11:

TriGal came to town for my going away bash and I was so hungover from the day mentioned above that I embarrassingly only met her, her boyfriend and her sisters for a couple of beers. They were headed to dinner down at Mercer and I couldn't think of anything but home and bed. I had a big day the next day that she (and a few special others) came to town for.

Day 10:

I met BYOWino and Fashionista for some breakfast cocktails before we headed to Radegast beer garden in Brooklyn for my going away party. Besides getting yelled at by some annoying soccer fans who were complaining about us standing up and blocking their view (though great, Radegast is not a sports bar, and if they want to be they need more televisions than just one), we had a great time. I forgot about the World Cup when I planned the party about a month ago and when people started asking me about whether Radegast had TVs, their web site said yes, so I was hopeful. They had one big screen and from the tables outside people were straining to see through window arches, but all in all we had a great time.

The second stop after Radegast was The Magician. It is a mystery to me why whenever we go there is nobody else inside. When we approached the doors and saw it empty with the lights out I assumed it was closed. I looked in and asked "Are you open?" to a woman doing bar prep and she said, "Yes!" It ended up being awesome. We had the whole bar to ourselves and drank the goodbyes away. There were a few great surprise showings that night and the next morning I just couldn't believe how fortunate I am to have such great friends.

We ended the night at Sing-Sing where LittleMissSunshine camped out on top of the table with a microphone. JerseyBoy joined the festivities (I hope he's having fun at the World Cup right now -- though I know he's missed by Fashionista at home) and somehow the poor guy got stuck with a very severe tab. Let this be a warning, Sing-Sing's great but it'll cost ya'.

Day 7:

I met Winette for our final final pow-wow. We went to Tia Pol and Bottino (not to be confused with Gottino). It was an incredible evening. We broke our record and actually made it to two wine bars and ate at each. One of the best parts of the night was running into an old friend in town from New Haven waiting for his blind date to show up. I looked at him and couldn't tell through the beard if it was actually him, and after staring for a good 10 seconds I finally said, "Deej?"

We caught up and he was psyched to hear about the move and Winette and I were both psyched to hear about (and meet) the blind date.

Tia Pol was excellent. We ordered the breads and the spreads. The bread (from Tom Cat bakery) was some of the best bread I've ever had in the city and it had this cold, soft tomato puree on top that was incredible. It barely needed the additional olive and chickpea spreads.

We also tried the chef's special that night which was green peppers dusted with sea salt. We ate them like candy.

I thought I'd seen the best of the best outside spaces in New York until Winette took me to Bottino. I was blown away by its beautiful, spacious garden seating. I felt like I was on the set of "Pollyana" and hardly in Manhattan. Our entree pastas -- the ravioli verdi and the penne -- were fabulous and I'm only sad for one reason -- I didn't discover it sooner.