Wilfie and Nell, a social experience in the West Village, New York

by Jessica Festa on

After hearing about Wilfie and Nell as being a great pickup bar as well as a great place to meet friendly people, my girlfriends and I decided to check it out and see if what we heard was true. On the website, the restaurant claims to not take reservations as to create the ambiance of an “informal gathering”. Patrons are also encouraged to take a seat wherever there is room at a table, including at tables where people are already sitting.

The bar is located in the West Village in New York City on a street full of cutesy bars and bistros, a quiet suburb inside a noisy city. Wooden tables are setup in close proximity to one another, allowing for easy conversation with strangers. While the menu isn’t too extensive, you will be too busy socializing to care. The cheese plate is a perfect shareable dish, with assorted cheeses, toast breads, apple slices, and chutney. If you’re on a budget, go for a draft beer for $6, your cheapest option. If you want something a little out of the ordinary and are willing to splurge, try their Spicy Margarita (make sure you get a water to go with it!).

Happy hour is the best time to arrive, as later on it tends to get extremely crowded. However, even when at full capacity the vibe of the bar never got too out of hand, somehow keeping its casual atmosphere. This is a place where you can come as you are, and while you will see men and women wearing suits and dresses, you will also see people in casual shorts and flip flops.

The verdict? We sat next to some really interesting people during dinner and had a great conversation about travel and the perks of living in the city. From there, we bounced around the room, mingling with not only guys but some ladies, as well. The people who are drawn to the place seem to be of the more friendly, social type. By the end of the night, it was easy to see why this place is known as the social experience of the West Village.

Located at 228 West 4th St. between 7th Ave. and West 10th St. Take the 1 or 2 subway to Christopher St.-Sheridan Sq.

Opening hours are Monday-Friday at 4PM, Saturday-Sunday at 12PM.

Beekman’s, a beer garden with a view in New York City

by Jessica Festa on

When most people think of places to drink with a view they automatically think of rooftop bars. For those who are interested in great shots of the New York skyline without the outrageous prices and swanky atmosphere of a rooftop venue, Beekman’s Beer Garden should be your next stop.

While the beer selection is limited, at $7 a pint it is reasonably priced, especially when immersed in the laid-back atmosphere, brew in hand, right on the water. Choices include Magic Hat #9-Not Quite Pale Ale, a drier beer with a crisp flavor, Six Point Crisp Lager, a soft honey malt with peppery hops, Blue Point Toasted Lager, a copper brew made from six different malts, and Ommegaang Witte Ale, the companies take on a Belgian-white.

Want some food to go along with your brew? Beekman’s menu features perfect pub-type grub, such as sausages, burgers, chicken tenders, and cheese fries. And, because you are on the water, a selection of seafood such as fish and chips and shrimp cocktail can also be ordered.

While the tented area full of picnic and pool tables is open to the public, there is also a man-made beach section which is the VIP area of the beer garden, complete with sand and beach chairs for those who want a little more luxury.

At 6PM on Fridays patrons can enjoy “Fest Fridays”, with a different all-you-can-eat party-theme each week, such as Chili Fest, Pig Fest, and Seafood Fest. Sundays offer “Brews, Blues, and BBQ” at 1PM featuring various musicians and shows.

The best part about Beekman’s is, hands down, the view of the Brooklyn Bridge at night. With the bridge being adorned with small lights as well as being a stone’s throw away from the bar, the setting is a bit surreal and a great opportunity to take photos.

Beekman’s Beer Garden is located in South Street Seaport at Beekman St. and South St. on the North side of Pier 17. It is accessible by the A,C,J,M,Z,2,3,4,5 at Fulton St.

Hours of operation are Wednesday-Sunday, 12PM-3AM.

Video of the day: Austin City Limits recap

by Elizabeth Seward on

If you have never been to the Austin City Limits Music Festival, chances are you probably don’t totally understand what all of the fuss is about. In fact, let’s take that a step further. If you have never been to a music festival, chances are you probably don’t totally understand what all of the fuss is about. Not only are music festivals an honest-to-god travel destination for tens of thousands of people per festival, but there’s something electric in the air when so many talented artists are playing so near each other in such a short time frame… and the electricity doesn’t just come from the amps. There’s a sort of unity perfect strangers regularly find themselves in arms with when taking time off to enjoy a music festival.

Provided you still don’t know what I mean, or that you know exactly what I mean and want to indulge yourself for a few minutes, check out this ACL recap video that the festival recently let loose. Enjoy.

Five things I’ll miss about Madrid (and four things I won’t)

by Sean McLachlan on

After six years of living part-time in Madrid, my family and I are moving to Santander, a port in northern Spain. Leaving a European capital of three million people for a regional city of less than 200,000 is going to be a big change.

Santander is in Cantabria, part of the rainy northern part of the country commonly called Green Spain. Stay turned for articles about this often overlooked region and its amazing mountains and coastline. I’m especially looking forward to having a beach a short walk from my house. I’ve never lived by the sea before. . .New York City doesn’t count!

Anytime I move, there’s always mixed feelings. I’m a bit tired of Madrid, but there are many advantages to living there. Besides my friends, here are five things I’ll miss:

Culture
With three major art museums, dozens of smaller ones, several Renaissance churches, and countless art galleries, Madrid is an art-lover’s dream. Film lovers will want to check out the Cine Doré, an elegant old movie theater showing art films and old classics for only 2.50 euros ($3.50). It’s a cheap and entertaining night out.

Nightlife
Madrid is one of the best places in the world for nightlife. When friend and fellow author Claudia Gray came to visit, she was blown away by the number and variety of bars, nightclubs, and late-night restaurants, and she’s lived in NYC, New Orleans, and Chicago. I can’t go out on a juerga (pub crawl) without finding at least one new place I want to visit again. Malasaña and Lavapiés are my two favorite barrios.

My mother-in-law’s cooking
I lucked out in the mother-in-law department. She’s never nosy, never bossy, and she’s an awesome cook. Foodies say that home cooking is always the best, and I have to agree. I’ll miss those Sunday lunches!

Hiking in the Sierra de Guadarrama
While the hiking in the Cantabrian Mountains with their green valleys, rugged peaks, and countless caves is going to be better than anything I’ve had in Madrid, I’ll miss hiking with the folks at Hiking in the Community of Madrid. This organization was founded by two expats who have written a guidebook to the Guadarrama mountains near Madrid and other special spots. Their mixed Spanish/expat group outings are a great way for visitors to try something different and meet some locals.

Bar Bukowski
There are places that become your own. Sadly, the economic crisis has closed most of Madrid my favorites down. My favorite literary cafe, favorite bagel shop, favorite arthouse cinema, and favorite video store all shut in the past year. This makes it easier for me to leave. Yet I will miss Bar Bukowski, with their friendly staff, their readings every Wednesday and Sunday, their micropress of poetry and short story chapbooks, and their overly generous mixed drinks. There is only one Bar Bukowski, and it ain’t in Santander.

%Gallery-132872%Not everything is rosy in the Spanish capital, however, and there are at least five things I won’t miss at all.

Pijos
The nouveau riche of any country are annoying, and Madrid has a whole lot of them. They’re the pijos and pijas, and they are ruining this country with their overspending, overbuilding, and risky speculation. Living in an ancient and rich culture, all these overly dressed idiots can talk about is perfume, handbags, manbags, and cars. And of course how much they spent on them. Growing up in the U.S. I developed a healthy disrespect for the aristocracy, but after several years in Europe I’ll take a clueless, cultured blueblood over a grasping, superficial pijo any day.

My apartment
Because of the pijos, housing prices in Madrid have skyrocketed in the past few years. Despite being a two-income family with only one child, we can only afford a two-bedroom apartment. It’s in a decent barrio, but it’s a cramped, bunkerish little place. We’ll be able to afford a much larger place in Santander. If we sold our Madrid apartment and moved to my part-time home of Columbia, Missouri, we could buy an antebellum brick house with more space than we need!

The dog shit minefield
Dogs have become trendy here in recent years, but cleaning up after them certainly hasn’t. Walking in Madrid requires constant vigilance to avoid the regular droppings scattered across the sidewalk.

Urban living
There are a lot of pluses to living in a big city, and a hell of a lot of minuses. I want open space. I like living in a place I can walk out of. I don’t want my son thinking trees grow from holes in the sidewalk. Santander is much closer to nature, with mountains and the sea in constant view. That’s how we’re meant to live.

Have you been to northern Spain? If you have any recommendations I’d love to hear about them in the comments section!

[Photo courtesy Greenwich Photography via flickr]

The Most Dangerous Beverage in Prague

by David Farley on
There’s a specter haunting Central Europe. A very quaffable, sweet-tasting specter, that is. And no, it’s not absinthe. This bibulously inspired drink is only around for a few weeks in September. Which means there’s much debauchery happening right now in the center of Europe. If, like me, you’re in the Czech capital this week, you’ll understand when I say that it’s the most dangerous beverage in Prague.

Meet Burcak [pronounced Bur-chahk], a Central European phenomenon where vintners take a batch of the young wine just after the grapes have been crushed, add sugar, and let it ferment a bit. The result is something that’s no longer grape juice yet not exactly wine. And it tastes dangerously close to an addictive juice concoction, which nearly ensures a hangover in the morning. As far as I can tell, it’s only available in the Czech Republic and Austria (in the latter it’s called sturm)


The word “burcak” is just starting to pop up in Prague right now, scrawled across chalkboards that hang outside wine bars. So if you’re in or heading to Central Europe, don’t miss the small window with which burcak is available. Burcak purists, however, will tell you it’s best drunk in southern Moravia, the main wine region of the Czech Republic, particularly in the town of Znojmo.

The last time I took a trip to the region, it was as if some alien intoxicant had overtaken an entire town. When my Czech friend Libor and I pulled into Mikulov, a small castle-topped town on the Czech-Austrian border, there were guys weaving down the tiny cobbled lanes, women vomiting into rubbish bins on the main square, and couples passionately disrobing each other behind trees. What was going on?

It wasn’t that there was something in the water to make the villagers both ill and amorous. It was the first day of the weekend-long annual burcak festival and the town was already collectively inebriated.

But besides its dangerously good taste, here’s how burcak is even more cause for alarm: There is a curse of burcak. While it only contains about five percent alcohol, it continues to ferment while inside your body. Despite the thoughts going through your head right now that some kind of yeast-reeking alien beast is going to explode through your stomach, it means that the alcohol level of the beverage you’ve been consuming the last three or four hours has grown to that of a normal, matured wine (about thirteen percent) while still in your body. Hence, the reason why this entire town of Mikulov was drunk on the day I arrived.


While I’m in Prague this week, I decided to seek out some burcak for myself. At one wine bar, situated next to The Globe, a pretentious and condescending (though I’m referring to the staff) English language bookstore and café, the burcak was overly sweet with a coarse texture. I still finished the half-liter jug, but was looking forward to finding something better. I found it at U Sudu, a cavernous wine bar that has always had a good reputation for good burcak. It didn’t disappoint. The “young wine” was smooth with a more subtle hint of sweetness. U Sudu, by the way, is only for serious drinkers, evidenced by its 9am opening time on most days.

I stumbled away from U Sudu, on my way to meet a friend for dinner. He had been, it turns out, drinking burcak as well. Which was good because he had no way of detecting just how intoxicated I may have been becoming from the still-fermenting burcak we’d already drunk.