Redhead: a Recommendation

I'm not talking about your hair, although I've harbored a desire to go a fluorescent fire-engine shade ever since that German chick panted her way through Run Lola Run. I'm talking about the bar/restaurant tucked away in the East Village on 13th St. between 1st and 2nd Ave. That's where I met a pair of friends from high school on Saturday night. I recently missed my ten year reunion back in Fallbrook, CA (avocado capital of the world, or so we like to say), so it was nice to catch up with a visitor and discover that one of my friends is a New York transplant, too (I'm four months strong; she's going on a year). The Redhead is a small joint, and despite the mind-numbing temperature outside, people had flocked to the place. I got there first, and no one batted an eye as I edged into a seat at the bar, ordered a glass of wine, and in order to pass the time, pulled out a book (The Man With the Golden Arm--the first National Book Award winner). No way was I going to try to make conversation with my neighbors, two ladies who seemed to be competing on who could eat the least number of carbs on her plate, which was a feat, considering they both had ordered a hamburger with home-made, ornate criss-crossed potato chips. The naked buns crowded their plates, giving, at first glance, the illusion that they hadn't eaten at all.

My friends showed up and started to peruse the cocktail menu, which I had ignored due to some prior disappointment with expensive, convoluted drinks in NYC, including a $10 muddled strawberry-and-balsamic vinegar-tini. Don't get me wrong, I love fabulous fancy concotions, but you have to be willing to take the risk. At $9 a pop, the cocktails at Redhead may have been considered a bargain, and I convinced my friend to get a Ginger Snap, which I sampled and subsequently ordered, risk-free. This was better than the cookie, my friend, and possibly even better than a Dark and Stormy (dark rum and ginger beer). After that indulgence, I switched gears and asked for a PBR, which, at $3 a can, was approaching my budget. The owner, who was bartending, passed me a cold one, smiled and said, "It's on me," thus earning his establishment a permanent position in my heart.

I didn't pay much attention to the menu, which was not vegetarian-friendly, and plus, I was only frittering away my hard-earned money on booze. However, my friend did order perhaps the sole veggie option, an appetizer of porcini-mushroom flatbread pizza. I was dubious--the flatbrad looked really flat--could something that thin taste like anything? My fears were unfounded: the texture was crisp in a way I didn't know was possible, and my little square was bursting with garlicky and buttery goodness. A professor of mine once said something along the lines of, "Garlic is the intellectual's opiate." Then call me a raging intellectual.

After the PBR, I went on to find one of the downsides of this place--a sole bathroom. (The only other downside? Too many white people.) After plodding through the line, I returned to find that my friend was a true friend and had ordered me one more drink, a hot spiced cider spiked with rum. It was only lukewarm but truly spicy-sweet and delicious, worlds better than a hot toddy (which I will continue to order at times just to say the name). By this time in the night, the crowd was starting to get a little loopy, and one girl-woman, who apparently had wandered off her normal circuit of college bars, sidled up to the bar and asked the owner for a series of shots, she didn't know what, but something "tasty," she squealed. The bartender frowned, shrugged, and suggested "Johnny Walker Blue with a few drops of water?"

I love this place. If I ever get a real job, I'm going back.