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Category: Bars
Neighborhood: Lower East Side5-10PM Every Day: $5 Lychee Martinis, Southeast Asian Sangria, Vietnamese Bloody Marys, Basic Cocktails, Red & White Wine & $3 Yeunglings.
Announced 2 days agoDelancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)
2nd Ave-Houston St (F, V)
Grand St (B, D)
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Dear Verlaine I have given a lot of my liver to your $4 Lychee Martinis.... I heart you!
Yes $4 martini.... poor drinkers go go go...... run don't walk....
I almost didn't write a review for Verlaine simply because it's been reviewed so many times. I read some of the other reviews and thought what could I add that hasn't already been touched upon. You've read about the food and the drink specials so I won't go there. You read about how crowded it gets and loud it can be.
So what can I add? Yes, I got it!
Verlaine is a great place to take a girl on a date. Probably not on a Friday or Saturday night though. I came here on a Friday at 9 and there was no room to sit or even stand for that matter. When I came to Verlaine after work on a Tuesday at 6:30 it was like a totally different experience. Plenty of seating available, same great drink specials, and not loud at all. The kicker is the ambiance. Dimly lit, with music playing at the perfect decibel.
If the time is right I highly recommend Verlaine.
Our NYC tour guide, Molly C. Brought us here first. Why? Because they have $5 drinks til 10pm! DC has so much to learn from NYC, all happy hours should last til 10pm.....sigh
The Sangria was generous and looked pretty, but it tasted like punch, the Lychee martini was kick ass.
This place was super crowded and loud, reminded me of the clubs back in DC. They offered asian tapas and we were lucky enough to score a couple of tables. I tried their dumplings, i was hoping for steamed dumplings, but I got fried dumplings...argh!!! Nevertheless I ate those suckers cuz I was starving. Not too bad, I liked the tangy spicy sauce it came with.
Is it weird that I would go to a place again solely for the rice? I don't mean fried rice or some overly complicated rice based concoction just coconut rice. The curry chicken I had was meh but the rice was so damn good that I wished they could take the rest of my chicken and swap it out for more rice.
I'm no idiot. I'm not giving a place three stars for some rice. That gets it 1/2 a star as the rest of your food should match up to it. One star is for the staff and the setting. I was digging the black and white portraits of some chick who really caught the artist's eye. The other star and a half is for the happy hour sangria. Happy hour until 10 you say? I may have to come back another day for the lo mein Brian drooled over and more sangria.
I'm starting to like this bar/lounge on Rivington. I've been here a few times over the last year or two, but it never made much of an impression on me. But tonight, I had a mojito, which was tasty, and maybe $7. Not bad. Plus there were cute girls at the bar helping me order. Hello!
It tends to have a decent crowd, good mix of people, and a lot of mingling. Yep, I'll come back.
First stop on Molly C.'s New York drinkathon.
Good happy hour deals ($5 "basic" cocktails, lychee "martinis", $3 Yeunglings, and some other stuff) didn't really make up for the fact that, well, this place is completely non-conducive to enjoying a group you come with. It's extremely loud insides with poor acoustics, so between the general din of the rather packed space and the DJ playing loud techno shit, it's damned near impossible to carry on a conversation without yelling. If all you want is a couple drinks and maybe some "pan-Asian" tapas, you'll probably be okay, but I couldn't see myself hanging out here long - which, conveniently, is exactly how things went.
You come for the Lychee martinis and AbFab happy hour, you stay for the pretty people, cool looking bar area, and to try and figure out why the ladies bathroom is all the way downstairs.....
the.end.
Verlaine looks super sketchy from the outside but inside its really cheery and surprisingly not full of irritating hipsters.
The lychee martini is great and the happy hour, which I believe runs until 10pm every day, is such a draw. It can get really crowded, but generally you can snag a seat at the bar (if you're a girl) or a table. Watch out though - the waitresses range from uninterested to downright nasty. Bartenders are fantastic!
it all started here. the mayhem.
the one and only Molly C brought us DC yelp faces here to start off the night. and what a great start, indeed.
slammed back a few lychee martinis ($5 a pop from 5 to 10 pm erryday!) and they were bangin... son.
this place would get only three stars from me due to the poor sound quality but the bad ass security guards out front bumped this joint up to a four star when they asked the several of us that were puffing on some tweeds to just mosey on down a little further from their establishment.
that shit never happens in DC. bunch of conservative pricks. i'm moving to NYC.
"HUH?????? WHAT????? NO, I DON'T HAVE A HAMSTER! YOUR NAME IS TIMMY? HUH??? JIMMY???? HUH???? OH.....IT'S ABNER." Basically, that's what it's like trying to have a conversation at Verlaine. Loud as hell with crappy acoustics make conversation here very limited. This was our first stop on the NYC invasion supplied by our fantastic Hostess snack food cake and all around Guru of Frugality and Practical Spending, Molly C. I was starving so I ordered the Shrimp Lo Mein and knocked back a couple of beers. The Lo Mein was actually pretty tasty. The shrimp were huge and it was piping hot when it came out. The drinks? Well...they were on special during their Happy "Hour" that lasted until 10PM, so I had no problem with them whatsoever. All in all, it was a decent place...nothing to write home about though.
Amazing! $5 dollar lychee martini's. So NYC! Great posh atmoshere! It would be my local hangout if i lived in NYC!
Verlaine, you just don't do it for me.
I came to Verlaine a couple of times, and this place is just OK for me. This is basically a cocktail lounge, and their list of cocktails is pretty much standard, with the addition of some inventive ones with sake, ginger, and home made cucumber-infused vodka (!). However, if like me you prefer beer, they don't have anything on tap (although their bottled beer selection includes excellent brews like Chimay and Paulaner).
The decor is just ok; to me it seems a place that tries hard to be trendy and cool, without being convincing. It's like a not-so-hot woman that keeps the light dim for you not to notice what she really looks like (next time you're there, try paying attention to the floor and the small tables in front of the bar, have a look around, and try to imagine what this place looks like with the lights on). I see this place being popular with the B&T crowd, and with NYU students.
I like the idea of using the walls to display art, but I would have preferred to see more than just a single artist exposing multiple version of the same sort of painting/image. The orange tone that pervades Verlaine is overwhelming, and the results is that everything looks two dimensional and flat. No attention into details here at all, no subtleties.
Verlaine thrives on their $5 cocktail happy hour until 10 PM, 7 days a week. Which is a pretty damn good deal, if you like cocktails. Still a one trick pony, though...
Molly C. coordinated / organized / lead the "dc yelpers visit ny" trip, and Verlaine was first on the list. Quite loud and not much room for a group, but the happy hour drinks all looked excellent, and the asian tapas were good. I think the cute couple next to us got it right though - come here with just one or two people - grab a small table - leave when it gets too crowded and loud.
Absolutely deserted on a Monday night at 930. Found my party at the front of the bar, where there are comfy couches arranged in a circular fashion. That way you can see everyone ;-)
Happy Hour until 10PM, wow, unheard of? Is it b/c of the recession? Who knows? But I gladly took advantage of it and tried a lychee martini. Not bad, but not worth more than $5. But thats OK. I had 2, and I was nice and toasty. Interesting music. There was a blue-grass version of "Hey Ya!" by Outkast playing. Funky, but I liked it.
Nothing really stands out about this place, but it was cool to have a few drinks here, and really the price can't be beat!!
This place is great if you want unique/trendy cocktails and martinis in a casual, LES setting. They have a long bar, plus tables, plus a small lounge/couch area.. but can certainly get overcrowded sometimes.
I tried their Lawnmower Martini.. and it really tasted like grass! (but in a good way?). I hate ginger, and they have it as an ingredient/flavor in the majority of their drinks.. but I still like their other drinks.
Definitely worth a stop.
Get the lychee martini: it fits quite nicely with Verlaine's loud, pumping music. (Thank me later.)
Friends and I stopped in for drinks. A bouncer checked our licenses - all out-of-state, and none from the same state - then let us in.
Verlaine is a decent sized lounge, but somewhat bare, making its high ceilings and long bar all-the-more obvious. A light crowd mingled amongst themselves, keeping the hub-bub to respectable levels. Unfortunately, it's crazy dark due to sparse, orange-tinted lighting. Casual light fixtures grace the front area, but nowhere else. I almost set up an event here but I'm glad I didn't; there's a time for romantic ambiance, but when night-vision goggles are needed to read the menu, that's a problem.
We sat table-side after being told a server would be with us, but one never came. (When we tried to order from the bar, they sent a server over.) Service aside, the bar turns out some strong martinis - I quaffed the aforementioned Hanoi lychee martini ($8; with a welcome splash of pineapple) and sampled a coffee one. Both were pleasant, and I'm not usually into martinis.
Potent drinks, good company, and no cover make a good combination. I'll be back.
Upon arriving to this rambunctious bar, my friends and I found ourselves in an extremely crowded narrow room. We kinda lingered awkwardly around the bar hoping to get served. Nope, that was too optimistic.
About 10 minutes later, I noticed that a table was gathering their stuff to leave, so I dashed over and took it. Seriously isn't it crazy how impossible tables are at a bar?
So we start to order our drinks. I got the Baudelaire, which was yum, but very very strong alcohol taste... Perhaps cognac isn't my thing. My friend got the classic Verlaine, which was the best in my opinion. My bro-in-law got the Bamboo with homemade cucumber vodka, which was vomit-inducing. Taste like puppy throw up. And lastly the ever popular lychee martini was actually really yummy and girly. Perfect for my masculine guy friends with me!
had my birthday here this past weekend. as everybody says, the happy hour special is excellent. $5 lychee martinis, $5 hanoi bloody marys, $3 yuengling, $5 house red and white wines. til 10:00pm.
the place is a long narrow layout. the atmosphere is chill, music isn't too loud. a nice, fashionable, chic crowd. our waitress was attentive without being overbearing and was able to handle us splitting the bill among 4 credit cards.
we arrived around 8:30 on a saturday night and there were still plenty of tables. by the time we left around 11, people were standing around waiting for tables. so get there early if you don't want to stand.
they serve asian-fusion tapas. reasonable prices for pretty good portions. the chicken satay was a little dry, but the shrimp lo-mein was delicious with plentiful shrimp. try the portobello mushroom dumplings too. will return for sure.
Four stars for the lychee martinis. Service is a little slow... so when you order... make sure you order everything. The appetizers are pretty good too. Get the Lo Mein.
This place is so chic and cozy at the same time. lychee martinis were delish. only stayed for one drink, but i will definitely be back!
As a rule of thumb, I don't do martinis. Don't particularly dig olives. Despise those unwieldy, devious, hoity-toity looking glasses.
So why did I end up drinking 5 of Verlaine's infamous $5 lychee martinis out of those damned martini glasses?
*Cue rationalizing*
1) I was with some generous cohorts who encouraged consumption and helped facilitate it.
2) I like booze.
3) I felt like getting a little (a lotta) drunk.
4) I mean, I really do enjoy lychees.
5) As a result, it tasted good. Strong, but good.
Emerging from Verlaine's packed interior into the night, I recall being surprised that it was, in fact, night. I woke up from the daze hours later in bed, the saccharine sensation of booze-soaked lychees, this bittersweet taste of lost innocence, lingering on my tongue, the insides of my cheeks.
I guess I should rewrite the first statement as:
I *didn't* do martinis. Now? I'm practically James Bond! Granted I did the second-girliest martini possible (I consider a lycheetini just a notch above the notorious appletini)...
Perhaps a gay James Bond?
Whatever. I'll take it.
So a bunch of friends and I started at Lolita and stayed until happy hour there ended, 8pm, and made our way to Verlaine. Going from such a chill place like Lolita to Verlaine (on a Friday) was a bit of a shock. Way too packed for my taste.
BUT, we got a table, which was handy. Lychee martinis? Holy cow, strong! Fried calamari? Pretty damn good. Too loud and crowded for the grandma in me, but not too bad.
I love Verlaine for following Reasons:
1. Happy Hour -$3 dollar beers, and $5 best lychee martinis until 10pm, now tell me that's not a good deal for LES
2. Atmosphere - I love to walk into Verlaine and get wrapped up in its dimly lit dining room as a grab a seat and immediately relax at the bar,.The art work on the walls is always a pleasure to look at and the whole place has a serene and quite a sexy feeling - I like.
3. Food - tapas served here are very good, and not that expensive compared to many other tapas bars. I highly recommend the 5-spice calamari and shrimp skewers...yum!
4. It's a perfect place to start a very inebriated night out on the Lower East Side.
I am a very frequent visitor to Verlaine, and I will be back there again and again. It's not too pretentious and a very great place to meet a couple friends over beers and/or martinis and get a conversations going - that is before it gets too crazy (and it starts to get busy around 8). Great drinks AND food, not many bars can pull that off.
Been to Verlaine about 3 times now but I've never yelped about it. They have great happy hour specials from 5-10pm. Wednesday night was not to crowded, we were able to get a table with out a problem. I've been here on a friday when the place gets slammed at 5pm.
They have good service and great happy hour special in a great space. The only thing is that I find their Asian Tapas to be a bit expensive, if the plates were more in the $5 range they would definitely get 5 stars from me.
In the four times I've visited NYC this year (so far), I've always made time to stop by this bar. I'm a fan of their $5 lychee martinis during happy hour and their super friendly bartenders. Good place to start off the night in LES. Place gets pretty crowded during happy hour, but I've always managed to find a spot or corner to sip my drink with friends. I'm a total fan.
It's true, Verlaine's happy hour specials are pretty tough to beat, especially when they're complimented by a trendy vibe. The cocktails are pretty yummy. In the late evenings, you will usually find groups of people enjoying each others' company...one night I was there, we had 2 different bachelorette parties mingle with our guys. It's a pretty happening place...Viva Verlaine.
A trendy/typical LES lounge. I like the atmosphere.. I don't know how my friends found this place but I enjoyed my time there.. Lychee martini was good.
Crowd asian/mixed. I did see some cute faces there( girls and guys).
Summary, nice lounge, good drinks, attractive faces... that's a 4 stars for me.
Yummy happy hour, lycheetinis are worth all that bragging. Strong, but not too strong, fruity, very refreshing in the summer. The DJs/system wasn't too impressive and the space, while decently decorated, was a smidge too tiny. Good to pregame at the beginning of the night, but a few drinks in, the atmosphere (LES, young prof, misc. bar hoppers) will grate on your nerves, as does the music..
Stay away from the warm sake. It's cheap & sour.. that's it really.
My friend designed a happy hour pub crawl and this was one of the best stops on it. All of the people we were with had the lychee martini but I opted for the sangria because I have a weakness for sangria. Also I don't really love martinis so I wanted to make sure I would really enjoy my drink at this bar. I definitely did! It was strong and had just a bit of fruit in it (I do believe a lychee!). For $5 I felt like I got my money's worth.
When we walked in the waitress asked if we wanted a table right away and shuffled things around so we could sit even though we said we weren't ordering food. We got there around 6:30 I think and it started getting really packed just after we arrived. I would definitely go back here for another happy hour.
Verlaine, thanks for getting me tipsy before 10pm,
all for under $20!
you make being cheap soo easy.
4 stars for being an Old Yelp Hangout spot and for serving fucking delicious $5 Lychee Martini's
If your bar hopping in the LES Verlaine's is a good place to start getting buzzed and not break the bank.
Upbeat music, relaxed crowd, but an insane bar. Your best bet is to order a ton of drinks and chill at a table while your there.
Ditto to the HH-- great prices from 6pm to 10pm for lychee martinis, sangrias and unique bloody mary's. Who can top that?
After coming here a number of times for the HHs, I finally had a chance to eat the Southeast Asian food on an early Saturday evening. We were pleasantly surprised with the very roomy space (all the times I've been here, it was hella crowded) and with the food overall. Having eaten at least 9 dishes, I have to say the calamari, wings and vegetable pancakes were the best. And if you like bloody mary's and ginger, you gotta try Verlaine's take on its bloody mary-- tis acquired taste.
Def recommend coming here especially when the weather is warmer (so you don't have to deal with the crowd).
Weekend nites get super crowded, so I usually come here on a Thursday nite with the following two goals in mind:
a.I WILL for once try something OTHER than their famous, oooh sooo delicious lychee martini
b.I WILL control my alcohol intake whatever my drink of choice might be for the nite
Well, all I gotta say is that everytime I come to Verlain, I fail at both of the above. Yes, their lychee martini IS as good as they say. It's impossible to stop at one...or two...or... Let's just say 4 lychee martinis in 40 minutes might have been an overkill...but this place still rocks!
Oh their appetizer-type food is delicious too, if you don't trust my inebriated mind, I believe some of my more responsible (and um sober) friends would agree with that. I especially recommend Portabella Mushroom Dumplings with chicken or spinach and shrimp skewers. yum
Lychee martini happy hour specials = 5 stars.
But I had bad experiences with the table services. So you have to order food in order to get a table. OK. The hostess said we could sit down at an empty table, but we absolutely have to get drinks from our waitress even though we already had drinks on our hands that were paid for at the bar. We were like, ok, we would get another round. Two minutes later, hostess came over and said the table was actually taken. WHAT? Sorry, you already seated us, too bad on your part. She insisted that we left. We asked for the manager, she apologized a million times but we STILL were forced to leave our table.
This happened not just once, but TWICE. I'm never going to attempt to eat at Verlaine ever again.
Happy hour until 10pm! You can't beat that!!
I started off with a Red Bull and Vodka, but once I saw the happy hour menu.. it was all over. Verlaine's Lychee martinis and Sangrias were good! I ordered two of each, plus a few Sapporos and Ying Lings.
I went on a Friday, so it was pretty busy.. but not ridiculously packed or anything. It can get kind of tight in Verlaine, since there isn't much room to walk between the bar and the tables if it's crowded. A few times, I had to get tapped to move out of the way, so the waitresses can get around. It's a cool, chill spot to hang out and get some drinks! Definitely a mixed crowd on a Friday night.
I plan to hit up Verlaine again when I visit NY!
Love it!
Lychee Martini all the way!
for under $ 20 bucks!
I'm done with 2, that's all I can say
=)
Food - I have no idea. Drinks - I have a good idea and I liked what I saw.
We came here around 11PM on a Saturday night and were actually seated at a table (all 7 of us). Service was great and the drinks were even better.
Between the 7 of us we tried almost everything - lychee martinis, the mint drinks, wine, bloody mary's...everything was awesome. We got a great buzz and the atmosphere was super conducive for chat with your homies. The mood is romantic, trendy, and sexy all at the same time.
I will be here for their happy hour special very soon.
Positive: This is a very small place next door to Fatbaby, my best friend found it because it had happy hour until 11pm which was a plus along with the fact that they have our favorite beer Lindemans Framboise. The food was delicious.
Negative: The hostess was not very accommodating. Very cramped.. No dance area. The music was so loud I couldn't hear the person sitting next to me and this place was basically only good for socializing.
I would probably only go back here to get a beer and move on.
Picking a bar for the night is like getting dressed in the morning for me. Am I in a pencil skirt and blouse kind of world-domination-chic mood? Am I in a jeans and a hoodie curl-up-by-a-fire mood? Am I in a SF hipster ill-fitting, unflattering so ugly it's cool mood? Well I have the hotel bar, the vintage-y bar, and the dive bar for each of those.
But Verlaine is just one of those, well, I'm just going to get dressed in something and hang out with my friends kinda bars. Long rows of cozy tables filled with groups of 4 or 5 people chatting merrily. Yes, merrily. Just the right amount of grit (not that much) with just the right amount of romance.
It was a great place to start off our bachelorette party with a round of $5 lychee martinis. And almost next door to Babeland and a string of great, fun restaurants, you have almost your entire night of sophisticated, feminine debauchery planned out for you.
This is a classy-but-cheap, excellent choice for happy hour!
They serve an excellent $5 lychee martini, and if your too "manly" to order one they have $3 yeungling as well. While I'm too cheap to order anything off the happy hour menu (and why would I since happy hour lasts daily till 10), the rest of their drink menu looks absolutely fantastic. If you feel like splurging a little definitely go for the calimari appetizer.
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