Satisfying Grazing and Sipping at Open; Mean Mojitos at the Kanvas Preview
Kanvas
barb@allegramedia.net writes @ 3:31:13 PM Eastern Standard Time:
I had to keep dragging Miss Michelle out of those matronly stores like Harriet Love and Yaso where she kept insisting on trying on bulky hairy sweaters. The salesladies were all, "Ohhh, you look so GREAT in that," but I'd put the kibosh on with a roll of the eye. After acquiring some shopping bags, we needed a restorative, so popped into Vintage New York's convivial tasting bar. Five bucks for five tastes, New York state wines only. Mostly just fine. Their biggest red was well-rounded with some spice, but at $43 I thought it was overpriced. We also tried a medium red that Michelle loudly pronounced "shoe polish." I thought it had more of a basin, tub and tile cleanser quality. We garnered some cold looks from the help.
A few more shops, my refusal to look at a gallery of WTC attack photos, then up to Chelsea for a snack at Open. A cool lounge with a mini-menu of cold plates and short list of wines by the glass. A suspense-movie soundtrack of jazzy funk. The house martini ($8) is smooth and sweet; vodka, fresh mint and lime juice with a goop of grenadine in the base of the glass. Very pleasant service. Decor is a mostly orange-red tribute to the square. Raised cafeteria seating from sixth grade in M&M colors and dormitory bathroom tiling. The requisite little white candles are distributed among the gallery after-work crowd. There is one lost couple from the J. Crew catalog. Earlier, on warmer weekends, there's neighborhood folk with kids and dogs, while urban bikers meet on the opposite corner to show off their bikes and talk modifications.
Smoking is encouraged; heavy glass ashtrays line the bar. Like one that whizzed past my ear at the Sea Shell in LBI on a crowded Saturday summer night. There had been a guy across the bar, definitely on steroids, who had pulled the front of his shirt up over his head, ostensibly because it was too warm, but actually to show off his drug-enhanced musculature. Diane had said, "Do you think I should throw ice at that guy?" I had said, "Yes. I think that you should." She has very good aim. Shortly, the ashtray was hurled at the guy next to me, missing him, but putting a diagonal floor-to-ceiling crack in the beachfront window in back of us. Six bouncers descended on Di's enraged target while the average-sized guy next to me, sweating and wide-eyed, turned to me and gasped, "I didn't do anything. He was completely unprovoked." I said, "He might have been a little provoked." When I returned for a wedding, the ashtrays were small and lightweight.
Michelle is having a love-hate relationship with the odoriferous Gorgonzola on the cheese plate ($14). In their prime chevre, Gouda and Camembert complete the balanced quartet, accompanied by figs, apricots and a plenitude of fresh, airy bread. A flute of sparkling blanc de blanc ($7) is apple-crisp and eminently sippable. A companion for it is the smoked salmon ($12), which comes with herbed olives that have not been cured within an inch of their lives, and a surprisingly dreamy dilled spread of just-sour creme fraiche. Served with toasts. A bowl for olive pits is brought as an afterthought. Other grazing options are charcuterie and pate plates. Miss Michelle wearily relates, "He asked me to marry him again." Then she's advising me to purchase exercise equipment like hers, but I cut her off: "Why don't you join a gym, give yourself a chance at meeting someone?" She is at first surprised and wordless, then sadly resigned "because I'm just...I'm just...that's the way I am."
But she's talking kind of wistfully about a guy across the continent. I think she likes him but she demurs. "Why don't you call him and tell him you're thinking of heading out for a few days. Maybe he can show you around?" Her answer is a flat "No." I'm getting deeper into it when she says, "Look, the guy behind you has more fabulous eyelashes than you." I can see without turning that he has platinum hair (they didn't call me Miss Peripheral Vision in training class for nothing) but I can't tell if it's a Halloween costume or just a downtown denizen. She orders again, "Look behind you." But I won't be deterred. "You are changing the subject." I always hear about friends who change friends' lives. I may have done that once, but it was more by happenstance than design. Or should I just wish her the best. Anyway, why should she listen to me with no money, no man and no prospects. But she doesn't listen to you either with the big house and the good man and the beautiful child.
It's Kanvas' grand opening, so open bar till 10 p.m. Undistinguished but for grape-colored rec-room lighting of the late 50s and some paintings that aren't my cup. A big-screen tube, active bar, a smattering of costumed Halloweeners and a Duran Duran-obsessed DJ. I remark it's awfully white in here and as if on cue a black girl enters and begins chatting with me. Michelle partakes often of the passed chicken fingers. I don't see other munchables, but I'm assured there is an "extensive" menu of seafood wraps and bar food served from 4 to 4. Hurricane sends me up to get some champagne before the freebies end, but at the bar I'm distracted by the bartender's intense muddling of mint in some highball glasses. He looks like an evil scientist conjuring. Two of those please. The man makes a mean mojito. Too sweet for Michelle though. We wave back at Frankenstein getting his groove on.
Michelle insists we pay our respects to Afroman before leaving. He wants to know, "Where are you going now?" "Uh, Serafina." "Oh we like Serafina too; we'll see you over there." Oh no you won't, turns out it's still closed. So shopping bags still in tow, it's Live Bait for fries. A really cute guy sits next to Michelle at the bar. She said she recognized him from tv but I still had to order her to talk to him. "Ask him what's that he's drinking." "Ask him what he's doing here." At some point names come up; I say he wouldn't guess mine, I mean I'm like Rapunzel, you could be there all night. His first guess is "Lane." I suspect someone tipped him off. He was asking me about Iceland, but after that open bar I don't think I was dispensing much useful information. Here's what I meant to say:
It's great for outdoor buffs. I saw one group with backpacks get off our plane and onto their bikes to ride into Reykjavik, where you can camp right in the city. They have their own sturdy ponies that have a singular gait. It never got completely dark. Healthy smiling schoolchildren will wave at you, but your tour bus could be held up by herds of sheep meandering on the roads. If you look like me they'll think you're German. Even the German tourists thought I was German and were running up barking their awful language in my face and demanding some sort of answers from me. The landscape was unearthly and you could stand where two continents meet. The national pastime seems to be soaking in hot tubs of mineral water. You start in a warm one and are supposed to progress to the insanely hot. (I only made it to their "tepid.") You are likely to see "Puffin" on the menu.
Then we got yelled at by the bartender. "Are you girls crazy putting that much habanero sauce on your fries?" The bottle is plunked down in front of us. "Here, drink the rest and you'll get some free rounds." We weren't that thirsty. The girl next to me and I discuss the earthquake. I'd been about to get out of bed and take issue with the downstairs neighbors for taking their walls down during quiet hours, but then I realized there'd been no accompanying wall-demolishing noise. I was able to fall back asleep as my groggy right hemisphere pattern-matched the shaking coupled with no sound to two other New York earthquakes that had awakened me in the past.
Once home Michelle rushed to check in with her nocturnal boyfriend, saying "Oof" as she landed on my futon. While dialing, muttered how can I sleep on something that hard. An old boyfriend had scored big points with me by stopping his dark red Corvette convertible at a strip mall on 22 and having me pick out the mattress of my choice. This before we'd had a sleepover. He'd confidently slapped his credit card down and had my extra-firm selection delivered to his place.
After her call, I said, "You have to wear this," and threw a leopard-print nightie at the demure Miss Michelle. She was too tired to argue.
See ya Saturday...
?Love, Lane
Open, 559 W. 22nd St. (11th Ave.), 243-1851.
Kanvas, 219 9th Ave. (betw. 23rd & 24th Sts.), 727-2616.