Dick For Dinner

Café Charbon

168-170 Orchard St. (Stanton st.), 212-420-7520

Apocalypse Lounge

189 E. 3rd St. (betw. Aves. a & b), 212-228-4811

I first saw Apollo Braun perched at a small table at Earth Matters on Ludlow St. "This food is love!" he told me. A few months later, at a party for the boutique Wear, Apollo was in rare form. "I'm bisexual! I want to be friends with you, but we can't have sex, sorry, cuz I don't have sex with my friends!" The particulars of the sex we wouldn't have came about two minutes after I'd walked in the shop. "I have the biggest dick in the world, 12 inches-it's beyond the extreme!"

I've never met a walking Saturday Night Live character I didn't like, so we headed over to Café Charbon on Orchard St., just down the block from the fashion-forward Apollo Braun boutique. Apollo, an Israeli powerhouse of a hustler, started out working at Yellow Rat Bastard. I first heard of YRB when animal-rights activists forced them to remove the live rats from their window display. It was just a pit stop for Apollo, nee Doron Braunshtein, who arrived in New York with $13 in his pocket. Several nude modeling jobs later, he ended up with a statement boutique in the choicest of neighborhoods, where the wildly eclectic clothes wear you.

Now a lot of places are sporting the title of "bistro," including the newish Angelines on Ave. A, in a spot where I used to be able to get a decent falafel but now must pay a bit more for a chewy steak sandwich and bad side salad. Café Charbon, however, is owned by Didier Faure, an actual French person, and he's been making money since day one. He once owned Flea Market on Ave. A, back when it was good, and his last business was Baby Jupiter on Orchard, where I once attended a comedy night with only one attendee-the host. I don't miss it much.

I got boeuf bourguignon and frisee salad with bacon bits, while Apollo sampled the onion soup and held forth. "I am New York! I am the real good old New York!" he ranted, with some truth. One day I went into his boutique to tell him off, and left somehow spending $300 I didn't have on the vaguely absurd but lively creations of Sir Charles. I thought of my great uncle Benny, a Russian hustler, who once talked the mafia into not only canceling the contract on his life but lending him even more money. People who grow up here often have blandly passive demeanors; it's the scrappy immigrants who dominate.

The beef was luxurious, but once I found out what frisee salad is-this hectic lettuce sprinkled with balsamic vinegar-I didn't like it. I approve of the new trend of bacon as garnish, but in this case it didn't help. Café Charbon is that rare thing: a medium-priced class act that actually works. Our waitress, the actress Amy Butchko, humored Apollo nicely, and not even the busboy flinched at being told how sexy he was. "I want to suck his dick!" Apollo confided.

We tooled over to Apocalypse Lounge, a year-old dive on 3rd St. that already looks worn out: a pleasant relief in the land of NYU. Apollo, who wants to be a huge pop star, gave the bartender his back-up music and jumped up on the small, elevated stage. "You can look but you can't touch!" he crooned while writhing around.

"Sing some Black Sabbath!" hooted a wise guy, as my friend Wolf pounded down $3 shots. Cans of beer are also available for $3, and low-budget art stars have been busy booking open mics and theme nights in order to take advantage of the no-pressure policy and tiny stage.

"I'm dying to do a porn movie! It's for the article, not for you," Apollo elaborated, blithely cutting me down to size for the second time in one busy evening.