Anthony "Is it lunch yet?" R.'s Profile

Divey cocktail bars are my favorite sort of cocktail bar, and Happiness Forgets is an excellent divey cocktail bar. It's speakeasy-ish without being irritating -- you won't find passwords or pretentious service here -- and would be easily at home in the basement of a building in New York or San Francisco.

There's a strong emphasis on great straight spirits beverages, although I believe the menu rotates pretty regularly to keep things interesting. The very friendly, extremely knowledgeable bartenders fix you drinks off a small but excellent drink list, and will happily go off-menu as well if nothing on the list suits you. And as a bonus, the back of the list has selected items you can order from the Thai place upstairs!

(And if you ask nicely and like proper, boozy cocktails, ask for the "connoisseur's" menu that has some serious all-spirits drinks in addition to the already-strong regular list.)

All in all, a great cocktail bar that I wish wasn't 5,500 miles away from me!

An interesting museum of branding and packaging from the 1800s through the present day. In truth, the term "museum" might be kind of a stretch -- it's more of collection of objects from those dates.

It's fascinating to see how packaging and branding have evolved through the years -- to see the transition from adorably earnest descriptions of products and their features to the slick pages we love to buy today.

Still, I couldn't help but feel like the museum could have been so, so much more with a little bit more work put into contextualizing the different areas. I couldn't help but wish for more societal and historical context for the changes in packaging and design -- the products are sorted by decade, with a couple of paragraphs on the wall introducing the major events of the decade, but it's definitely light on explanation.

Similarly, the end of the museum displays collections of products evolving through the years -- Coke cans, Cadbury chocolates, Guinness bottles -- which is very cool, but again, it doesn't have any mention of the trends designers were following as the redesigned packages or call out any particular brands or packaging as exceptional.

That said, it's still a fascinating and interesting collection of objects that easily fills a full hour. Still worth a visit if you have the £6.50 to spare, but be prepared to be frustrated at how it falls short of its potential.

First off, let me say that the idea of a coffee shop-style workplace that's also a Mexican restaurant is brilliant. It conjures up enormously fun images of beginning the day with an espresso as you read through your emails, then making the seamless transition to Corona and margaritas as it gets later in the day.

So that angle is fun -- but El Paso has to put in some serious work on their food before I'd suggest eating here. I had chicken and steak burritos here with a friend, and I'd say they were both... dull. They're good sized, and served mojado style with sauce and cheese on top, but digging into them I was sorely disappointed.

The burritos were like a simple stir fry lazily inserted into a tortilla -- long grain rice, very simply (a bit of salt and pepper) seasoned meat, and almost no detectable spice.

That said, the space was nice (definitely trendier than the taquerias in my usual home of San Francisco) and there's Wi-Fi and beer, so you could do much worse for a space to sit and work. But seriously, people -- you could probably also do much better.

I came to St. Ali on a recommendation from my barista at Prufrock Coffee and was not disappointed.

Fantastic breakfast and brunch options, amazing pastries, and seriously excellent coffee in espresso or single-cup pourover/aeropress varieties served in a cool, funky venue that looks straight out of Brooklyn.

Seriously, people: As mentioned in most of the reviews for St. Ali, the quality of the coffee cannot be exaggerated, especially the filter coffee pourovers. It rivals the best cups I've had in NYC and San Francisco -- and was a very welcome and happy reprieve from Nescafe and watery Americanos.

Yes, yes, yes. Backbar is the first truly speakeasy-styled bar I'm aware of in Boston (I don't think that Drink counts -- and don't get me started on Prohibited), and it does a fantastic job of it.

Traveling cocktailians will recognize many hallmarks of the speakeasy genre at Backbar -- the barely-marked door, the small, intimate space, and the excellent cocktails served by exceptional bartenders, but it's executed without the kerfuffle and pretension you'll find at PDT, Bourbon and Branch, the Violet Hour, or countless other "speakeasies" around the country.

The house Manhattan variant "The Model-T," named after the building's origin as a Ford factory, is a lovely herbal twist on the classic, and the Smoke n' Coke twist on a Rum and Coke (with New England soda Moxie in place of the Coke) is not to be missed.

Backbar is a real treat to visit and a valuable asset to Union Square and all of the 'ville.

Brick & Mortar is fantastic, a more-than-worthy successor to the Enormous Room that continues the trend of top-notch cocktails making their way to Camberville.

It keeps the exposed brick and dim lighting of the old Enormous Room, but does away with the opuim-den couches in favor of a large copper-topped bar and a few hightop tables. Not the best place for big groups, but a fantastic destination for groups of 2-4.

The drinks are more strongly focused than has been the case at other Boston-area cocktailing establishments, with a strong slant toward straight spirits and bitter liqueurs, making B&M a bit harder to be universally adored as some of the Boston cocktail standbys like Drink or Eastern Standard.

Still, if you dig badass, boozy, possibly bitter drinks served up by exceptionally knowledgable bartenders (including alumni from Drink, The Independent, and other Bostonian favorites), you'll be in heaven.

Adorably mom-and-pop hardware store with good prices, very friendly service, and a very convenient location next to Berkeley Bowl and Walgreens.

The store is very well stocked, key copies are a very reasonable $1.29, and it has that awesome oldschool hardware store feel in spades.

Dollar Day horse racing = greatest way to catch up with friends.

After discovering GGF a couple months ago, it's been my go-to activity for friends visiting from out-of-town. It's insanely great to sit in a box, catch up with some buddies, nom on insanely mediocre dogs, and sling back $1 High Lifes for an afternoon.

A fantastic way to get a whole afternoon of fun for under $10.

Here's a few pro tips that may help you in your enjoyment of horse racing:

- Take the free shuttle from North Berkeley BART if you don't have a car or want to get real boozy. Service is pretty frequent and is very convenient.
- Put Tapatio sauce and onions (from the central condiment station) on the insanely mediocre hot dogs.
- Bet on the races! It's a $2 min bet, but having some cash resting on the outcome of the races makes it so, so much more exciting. Even if you lose all your money, it's $2 well spent on adrenaline and yelling.
- Ease into gambling: start by making safe bets (favored horse to show, that kind of thing) and get more bold as you win.

Five dollar lunches in SOMA are few and far in between, but I'd say Mehfil nails it pretty well.

Check out their site ahead of time, and select the dish you'd like most. Head on into the door and pick the dish you like the most (or pro tip -- pick two!) and be out in under a minute with an Indian rice plate for five bucks exactly.

The food is all delicious -- but the veggie options are definitely the highlight. The chicken dishes can be a bit bony, and the servers are more generous when dishing out veggies. It's not so much food that it'll overfill you, but it's enough that you'll be satisfied.

You guys. This is the kind of bar I love the very, very most. Mr. Lew's is a dive, for sure, but it's more like a cocktail bar wearing a very, very convincing dive costume.

High falutin' speakeasies are fun and good, but they're best left as occasional treats -- do you really want to go through all the play-acting and rigamarole every time you want a drink? Mr Lew's brings nearly the same level of care as B&B and its ilk to making you delicious drinks with far less fanfare.

They have a dedicated menu of highly delicious sazerac variants, a small other menu of creative cocktails, and an excellent knowledge of classics in the bartenders' heads, all for the very reasonable price of $8. Oh, yeah -- and shots of Wild Turkey 101 followed up with an Olympia for $7. Another round, please!