1/2 oz pear liqueur
1/4 oz cachaca
1/4 oz lime
#2: 2 drops ango
#3: short drizzle of maraschino

#2 needed a dash of sugar. #3 was balanced, though too much maraschino for my taste. probably just right for the sophisticated cocktail enthusiast.

ango and maraschino would probably work together.

…

went to adesso for a couple of late night cocktails and the free spread. food was great, as usual, although they played a VERY CRUEL TRICK by swapping out a plate of roast pork piadina with identical-looking mushroom piadina.

the free food attracts young, hot, underfed students of both sexes. how did they manage to accomplish this, without also attracting chinese retirees with 30-year-old sweaters and untreated boils?

cocktails, i had a diablo (they call it diavolo) [tequila, lime, creme de cassis, ginger beer] and a grapefruit gimlet [charbay grapefruit, lime, agave nectar]. eh. what can you expect from free pouring.

ended up sitting next to, and chatting with, a guy who serves at an upscale restaurant in san francisco. kinda douchey (”i’ve been getting into cocktails as a hobby” “hobby?! where i’m from, we call that a drinking problem” heyyyyy! you’re hilarious), but effusive and superficially entertaining after my second drink. i asked what kind of $ he made, and was informed that he ‘pulls down six figures’ a year, and that that isn’t uncommon for servers.

i asked what he thought of this theory: that servers at really high-end places, like alinea, don’t necessarily make the most money because those places are often so labor intensive that although the tips are large on a per diner basis, they get sliced up many ways. and that servers at expensive-food-casual-vibe restaurants probably make more. he said that was definitely true, and claimed that servers at zachary’s can make almost 100k/year. (aka “they pulling three bills a night”–if i ever start talking like this please kill me)

maybe gotta rethink my tipping algorithm.

i would have thought that a server, especially one who decried the snobbery and pretentiousness of other servers, would be a better customer than he was. “what are the biggest oysters you have” bartender tells him, he orders a half dozen. after they arrive, he looks around for condiments, doesn’t see any. yells to/at bartender “hey can we get some salt and tabasco here?!” later “i thought these oysters would be bigger” and “can i get a………………” [bartender stands by while dude takes about 20 seconds to scan the menu]

…

i wonder if that rickhouse yelp review makes me sound like a whiner. i wonder if i am a whiner.

- billionaire cocktail (whiskey, grenadine, absinthe bitters, lemon)
- fragola coppa (pimm no. 1, creole shrub, cucumber, strawberry, mint, limonata)
- pisco sour

all delicious. yes, they came up with a strawberry cocktail that bore only the faintest resemblance to a tgif-style daiquiri. and didn’t suck. yes. it can be done.

(cocktail program designed in part by this guy)

we also got a mixed pate platter and a mixed salumi platter. i liked the salumi more than the pate. the pates were refined, lots of flavor, beautiful texture–but the salumi was on another level.

(i have to say–i’ve given fatted calf a few chances, because i want to like them. but adesso does pork products right. and–i realize now–fatted calf doesn’t.)

adesso gives away a wide variety of free food from 5p-7p and again from 1030p-12a. it’s all really good. i can’t see how they can afford to do it. also, i would kind of feel like a sucker paying $20 for food at 7p if i could have shown up 5 minutes earlier and gotten it for free.

i’m super stoked about this place. unlike pizzaiolo, you dont have to show up at opening to get in.

i wish i lived on pleasant valley, between p. and a. i would be the biggest fucking boozehound.