Charles Strouse
Location: Upper West Side, NYC
Book: Charles Strouse
Show time: 5:30 PM FREE
Venue: Barnes & Noble
Food: Symposium
Drink: Broadway Dive
Miscellaneous: Sip
Longtime Broadway veteran, Charles Strouse has composed music for shows like Annie, wrote the film score for Bonnie and Clyde, and the theme song for All in the Family. He’s a legend and in his new memoir Put on a Happy Face, he waxes poetic on meeting and working with acting legends like Sammy Davis Jr., Lauren Bacall, Mel Brooks, Warren Beatty, and Carol Burnett. Low priced anything near Columbia is getting harder to find, but at Symposium, you’ll get Greek food that won’t force you to take a mortgage out. The Pastitsio (baked macaroni with ground meat $9.95) is out of this world. Not the kind of dive bar you’re thinking, though Broadway Dive has a single malt scotch and bourbon menu big enough that you won’t even know where you are after a few. A coffee bar that also serves liquor, tapas, and baked goods all in one place? Sip sounds good to me.
Put on Your Dancing Shoes. It’s Chin Chin!
Location: East Village, NYC
Band: Chin Chin
Show time: 9:30 PM
Venue: Joe’s Pub
Food: Oyama
Drink: Grassroots Tavern
Miscellaneous: Mudd Cafe
Don’t forget to check out Chin Chin at Joe’s Pub tonight. Blending funk, soul, disco, hip-hop, and electronica with an Afrobeat influence and plenty of hooks, these guys usually come 12 musicians deep and bring the party live. In other words, put on your dancing shoes! With sushi that’s 50 percent off all the time, you might think, “Something’s wrong with that?†but the fish is good and the rolls are inventive, making this one of the best low-priced sushi joints in the city. Though St. Marks all of a sudden lost its charm, Grassroots Tavern hasn’t. This large dive bar has cheap drinks, darts in the back, and old men behind the bar, things a good dive bar should have. Excellent coffee served in a big mug and a healthy menu of food coupled with a year round enclosed outdoor backyard patio make this place a great little coffee shop in the area.
