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What do you wanna do tonight?
New York City
by Lynn Nguyen
In a city where swarms of hip and active singles are catered to in areas of entertainment, fashion, dining and nearly all other aspects of city life the options can be overwhelming if not stifling. When you stop to think about it, you could live here your entire life and not have done everything worth doing. Not if you stand a chance at remaining an employed and viable asset to society.
New York City, the largest cultural cornucopia in the world, consists of varieties of museums, restaurants, lounges, nightclubs, bars, cafés, and many more recreational venues to keep the professionally mobile and socially insatiable occupied at all times of the non-working day. For those who have never had the fortune to visit this metropolis, kissed and often pounded by its many vibrant colors and stimulating textures, add this to your list of things to do before you croak.
From blaring night clubs featuring the newest one-minute DJ to a quiet café where all eyes and attention yield to the free flowing word jockey performing on stage, from a sold-out post-season Yankees game in the Bronx to a pre-season scrimmage at Madison Square Garden, from that singles bar on the Upper East side to that hipster saturated dive in the East Village there are a multitude of choices offered to the free-living single who has yet to cross over to the other side where joys of anniversaries, parent-teacher conferences, and family vacations become top priority. Take a moment, or a decade, to enjoy that phase in your life where you own your choices. Make them wisely, make them without regret.
When I was asked where a Rice and Times reader would and should seek the nightlife in the Big Apple, I labored for days on how to possibly narrow down the countless options After much research and hours of filtering, these singles-friendly establishments made the cut.
One thing you'll find these three have in common is their location, the East Village. In the past couple of years I've spent a reasonable amount of time in the main districts of Manhattan, and I've found the East Village to be the best combination of style, fun, youth, ease and pretty people without the pretentiousness, and name-dropping found in other less desirable neighborhoods.
Forbidden City
Asian-American owned, this unlabeled restaurant tucked in the heart of Alphabet City doubles as a sake and Asian tapas bar featuring appetizers such as vegetable and shrimp dumplings, sushi rolls and shumai just to name a few. The clientele is young, single and mostly Asian, but one thing is true: it's not ethnocentric. The patrons mix quite beautifully and with the exception of the occasional random eggroll-chaser gone loose, an appreciation for all different cultures takes place within a tapestry of bamboo trimmings, sake delights named after martial arts films, and energetic bartenders grooving to hip-hop up-an-comers, and old skool legends.
212 Avenue A, New York, NY 10009, Phone: (212) 598-0500
Le Souk
Inside, velvety pillows line the seats. Gold, purple, red and other brilliant colors reminiscent of the exotic East adorn the walls, chairs, tables and staff. This Moraccan haven houses a surprisingly large number of South Asian patrons and boasts exquisite Middle Eastern cuisine, but I wouldn't know. I didn't come there for the food.
I'd heard that out back you could rest on a bed of pillows, rub against fine fabrics, and have your choice of exotic libations. I heard right. Hookah pipes are scattered casually about the space as banghra music plays to a hip hop vibe. These two elements, the smoky pipe and heart thumping music, mixed with a little drinkey make a simple formula for a brand new aphrodesiac.
This is definitely a top recommendation for those who have had it with the typical New York City spot, be it the upscale velvet rope joke or the hipster too-cool-to-be-cool darkroom downtown. A new sound ought to get things shaking.
47 Ave B, New York, NY 10009, Phone: (212) 777-5454
Remote Lounge
It's a two-story space located on one of the busiest strips in town, the Bowery. On the outside it looks like a television studio with several monitors taking security surveillance of a nightclub. America's most wanted? Almost.
In America, the mainstream dating style, keeping your eyes open and mustering up the courage to start dialog with a complete stranger, can be daunting and full of its own pressures and ego annihilation. It's something we take for granted aloofly brushing it off as an afterthought. But let's get real. It's an effort. Some are good at it and some are bad. But no matter what category you fall into, you can bet that most people fall into the "trying not to look like you're trying" category.
Enter Remote lounge, taking the American dating ritual to a new, more acceptable level. All its booths, the bar, and walls are lined with monitors of assorted sizes. Each screen comes with a remote control, and the object? Grab a booth, check out other singles on the monitor, find a cutie, and dial in for a convo. It's accepted. In fact, it's expected. It's your way out of the stigma laid upon those who have to "try" to have a successful dating life.
327 Bowery, New York, NY 10003, Phone: (212) 228-0228
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