In at 'inoteca

Friday night started innocently enough with a happy hour at Verlaine with the girls.  I've been to Verlaine plenty at night, as it is located in the middle of a prime LES strip, but I always forget they have a pretty solid happy hour deal.  The happy hour crowd is not as good as the nighttime crew, but I didn't really care when I had my gals and my choice of $5 lychee martinis and bloody marys and $3 Yeunglings.

After a couple drinks, we decided to head to dinner.  We hadn't made reservations but there are so many restaurants in the area and it was early so we knew we wouldn't have a problem.  We decided on 'inoteca, which is a Lower East Side favorite for Italian small plates where I had shamefully never eaten.  We ordered a bottle of wine from the extensive menu and then set about deciding what food to order.  When we walked in, we saw a list of 28 cheeses so we knew we would have to start with a cheese plate.  You can order three, five, seven, or nine cheeses and guess which plate size we went with...if you were thinking anything less than nine, you have not read nearly enough of my blog entries.  There were so many to choose from so we let the waiter do the picking and he did a wonderful job.  We also ordered a plate of prosciutto; a salad of watercress and grapefruit; beets with orange, pecorino, mint, and hazelnuts; and rabbit canneloni.  Everything was delicious, but I think my favorites had to be the cheese and the beets.

After dinner, we still wanted to get another drink so we started wandering around the Lower East Side.  This is the point of the evening when we walked into Babeland, a sex toy shop.  I couldn't even tell you what possessed us to walk in, but I'm blaming it on the wine.  I was like a fish out of water.  There were so many colorful things to look at and I had no idea what any of them were supposed to be used for.  That was good for a nice chuckle and distraction before we stumbled into the next locale, Epstein's.  After a drink and an attempted pick-up by a bearded man, it was time for Steph and Marcy to call it a night.  But I wasn't done yet, oh no.  I headed over to 200 Orchard to meet Wendy for her co-workers birthday where I downed a shot and another drink or two.  The bar was perfectly set up for a birthday party, so if you're looking for a place to turn a year older, this is a good one to keep in mind.

Considering I started my evening at about 5:45, I was completely done by 1:00 AM.  Friday, I OWNED you.