What’s that saying again? “You don’t know what you got until it’s gone”? Or is that just a Cinderella song? Either way, it totally illustrates the point that I needed to make for this narrative. Some of my readers might not know this yet, but I had done a series of what I called “Pregaming” narratives over on my PiercingMetal Musings site and they essentially discussed the places where my friends and I would enjoy food and drink before heading to the shows. It was a fun little thing to share with my audience since I just love talking about things that I enjoy. Anyway, a week or so ago, I was heading out to see Lez Zeppelin with my good buddy Skeleton Pete down on the Lower East Side. We were lamenting the closure of Acme and most recently Nice Guy Eddie’s as it left us with limited choices that we agreed on in the area. The sun above was blazing and we were getting impatient about getting a chance to cool down and sate the growing hunger. Fortunately while on Orchard Street a shop owner responded with “try Interstate” when I quizzed him about finding a decent burger in the vicinity. It was only a short hop from our exact location.
As we walked in to the cool looking and cool temperatured bar, I asked the server to please tell me you make a good burger and that the beer is ice cold. He replied yes and yes. That was good enough for me, so we both sat down and began to peruse the menu. I realize it looks empty in my photos but you need to understand that this was early in the afternoon and most people were still at work.
This shot shows the upstairs balcony which looked like something out of a science fiction film. It was where the DJ stays when they have one and its a really sizable space that is perfect for a private party by my estimation since there is also a bar up there.
Behold the upstairs section of Interstate Food and Liquor. It seemed the perfect space to have a small gathering of people to do an album listening or have a controlled media meet up function. I know for sure that I would be bringing it to the attention of other media friends since it looked so awesome up there.
Our bartender this evening was named Ryan. He was a friendly dude and kept us in some casual conversation while we ate and killed a couple of beers.
Next up for your indulgence are a couple of shots of the food we had at the Interstate but you will have to pardon my taking a bite out of it before I snapped my shot. I was really hungry and then realized I had not done my usual Foodspotting yet. Pardon me. This was called the American Burger Deluxe and it was awesome. They serve this with a cup of french fries that appear to be freshly cut and while its not a part of this dish, you can see one of my jalapeno poppers on the plate.
Here is the rest of the poppers. Skeleton Pete and I decided on this as an appetizer. They made these fresh as opposed to serving up frozen ones. There was a tomato kind of salsa served with these as a sauce and it was nice and tasty as well with some bite. A good choice for sure and we told the Sous Chef Martin Tirado this when we had the chance to meet him.
Hopefully I have sold you on the place. I really enjoyed myself and plan on returning as soon as it’s possible to do so. Given its geographic location from the shows that I see, this one might just require a special trip to enjoy more of its offerings, but I surely don’t mind making that adventure at all.
Official Website: http://interstatenyc.com/
If you are curious about those other narratives that I mentioned in the beginning of the post, you can click HERE to enjoy the batch of them. Now that the PiercingKen blogsite is at two years I think its time to move that kind of observation over to this space. I don’t think anyone will mind and its not like it will take away from what is going on with the PiercingMetal Musings blog. I sure have a lot of things being posted there on a regular basis.
