After work, I went downtown to City Hall, an American restaurant in Tribeca on Duane Street1 for some festivities with Jimi and his friends. If you’re a besuited middle-aged white businessman, this is your restaurant. But then, if you are, you probably already knew that, because the place was packed with ’em, making me feel like a potato-sacked hillbilly for not wearing a collared shirt.
Lots of rich wood paneling, track lighting and, lining the walls near the ceiling, backlit photos of historical New York street life, including several by Berenice Abbott.
Appetizers were plenty, including garlicky vegetable trays of pickles, carrots, celery, radishes, pickled tomatoes and olives, then there were dinner rolls and deep-fried onion strings. Whether our waiter was biding his time or it was just the regular way of things, the time it took to get our menus, and then our food after ordering, was glacial: literally two hours to get our menus, then another hour and a half for the food.
Several folks ordered the “High Rise of Shellfish,” a tower of oysters, clams, mussels, crab, shrimp, lobster and some other mysterious-looking crustaceans. I tried the grilled hanger steak, served with balsamic onions and drenched in port butter for extra heart-stopping richness, and served with one of those small piles of mystery greens that I’m never certain are there merely for decoration or are truly meant to be eaten.
I had a few forkfuls of Jimi’s dessert, which was red velvet cake, a treat I’ve always wanted to try. Tastes like butter. And correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the secret just a cup or so of red food coloring?
Afterwards, the group, which contained several well-dressed handsome gay men, decided to watch some go-go boys at a midtown club. I was informed that the difference between go-go boys and all-out strippers is that there’s no fucking around, as it were, with the go-go boys removing any clothing: they emerge fully clothed in a thong or some other sort of prurient undergarment, or perhaps nothing whatsoever. At any rate, I decided this jolly aspect of the evening wasn’t for me, so I bid the guys adieu.
City Hall
- 131 Duane St. (Between Church and West Broadway)
- (212) 227-7777
- Meal 29 of 52: grilled hanger steak ($25).
1 Trivia Time: Just south of Duane Street is Reade Street. In 1960, that New York drugstore chain took its name from the two streets, which bounded its warehouse. [back]