Sunday, November 7th, 2010—Bar 301
Day 301—Saturday, November 6th, 2010
Choptank
Live, from New York, it’s Cheeseburger Saturday Night! With special guests Clacky and Shannon from Newcastle, Australia. Featuring the ready for prime beef player, Marty Wombacher. And now, tonight’s guest host in Greenwich Village...Choptank!
It's Shannon's birthday, so we had a pre-dinner party at my place. In addition to being a great chef, Clacky is an ace photographer and set up his camera on a tripod to take a shot of the three of us.
And we had to get a shot of us giving you the one-finger salute.
After a few beers and some popcorn we made our way to Bleecker Street and found ourselves in front of Choptank, tonight's destination. However, like an idiot, I forgot to take a photo of the place. Luckily I found this one on the internet, but there was no photo credit. So thank you to whoever took it!
There's more than one bar in here. Here's the front bar.
And there's a marble-topped wooden bar in the back.
The motto here is "Be Nice or Leave," so we decided to settle in here.
Here's Clacky and Shannon relaxing at the bar.
Joe the bartender serves up three cans of Genesee Cream Ale.
Cheers!
Banquettes and tables line the walls opposite the bars.
Stephen and Linda were seated next to us at the bar. They're a friendly and very cool couple and they have one of the most unique marriages ever. He lives in Boulder, Colorado and she lives on the Upper East Side here in Manhattan. They only spend the weekends together! It sounds like a genius idea to me!
We had a nice conversation with them and Tim and Shannon posed with them before they left.
The bar has a good selection of craft beer and Clacky chose one called, "Purple Haze" to go along with his purple, "Down Under" shirt that he bought at the 365 Bar Store. "Boris" maintains the store and designed the logo and all of the shirts. Check it out, you don't need to be Australian to buy one!
Fresh potato chips are placed in front of us and we're reminded we came here not only to drink, but to eat as well.
We check out the menus and place our order.
Clacky gets his camera ready to snap some shots of the food. His photos are vastly superior to mine, so some of them will be interspersed with mine.
Shannon ordered the cheeseburger. Clacky took the shot, but didn't quite get the cheeseburger in it. I think that Purple Haze he's drinking has kicked in. (Photo by Tim Clack.)
So I stepped in and snapped a shot of it. Looks pretty fucking amazing, huh?
Tim got a rock shrimp taco, the food here is great! (Photo by Tim Clack.)
Since Shannon got a cheeseburger, I decided to go with the Choptank Dog. It's an all beef frank topped with crab dip, cheese, old bay chips and scallions. And it costs just five bucks! (Photo by Tim Clack.)
I devoured it in about one bite. (Photo by Tim Clack.)
Here's Clacky and Shannon tucking into their dinners.
Clacky samples Shannon's cheeseburger as the woman at the end of the bar appears to be suffering from a sudden migraine headache attack.
Clacky took the last shot of the evening and sent in this photo caption: "Some homeless dude giving me the one fingered salute....wait a minute...it's Marty saying...Goodnight everybody!" (Photo by Tim Clack.)
Review
Okay, I slept in and now I’m running late and have a lot of stuff to do before my Sunday dinner, so I don’t have time to write a review. Here’s one from New York magazine.
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New England has largely dominated the flavor of New York’s burgeoning fish-shack category, but regional diversity comes with the opening of Choptank in the former Bar Q space. Named for a river in Maryland where the owners and the culinary consultant, Kevin Patricio, grew up, the joint references the Chesapeake Bay region with crab chowder, Old Bay seasoning, and Baltimore’s Ostrowski’s Polish Sausage, served with soft pretzels and mustard. Although chef Matthew Schaefer’s menu focuses on seafood, there are meatier, southern-inflected options, like a Virginia-ham plate and fried chicken. — Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld
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Thanks to Clacky and Shannon for a fun night on the crawl. Happy birthday to Shannon, and thanks for the great photos, Clacky!
Choptank
310 Bleecker St. (Near Grove St.)
212-675-2009
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Bonus Photo From Tim Clack In New York City!
After dinner I went home to catch up on some much needed sleep and Tim and Shannon went to climb the Empire State Building. Here’s a beautiful shot of New York and a caption from the top of the Empire by Clacky.
Kong's final resting place (by night). Kinda looks like Port Macquarie, hey Fitzy?!
32 Comments
Reader Comments (32)
Geneses Cream Ale !!! I cut my teeth on that stuff as a kid in Pennsylvania !!! Party !!!
Happy Birthday Shannon! Nice place to have a birthday dinner, and the dinner looked great. Your last photo looks like you need to be hanging out with ABBA man :) Overall looks like a fun Saturday night, and hey at least we all got an extra hours of sleep!
The food looks amazing there and I'm with Gene on the Genesee, love that stuff, but I don't see it around much, nice call! That food looks amazing (nice shots, Clacky!) and I can't believe that hot dog was just five bucks with all those toppings. And the bonus photo by Tim Clack is breath-taking!
Tim Clack downunder with his cool shirt,,,and his very pretty girl Shannon. The food looked really good. Genesee ive only had a couple of times,,,,love the cream ale's like Little Kings, and the very hard to find Cinci Cream ale from Canada,,,,used to be called Cincinnati Cream,,,,with the logo "who want's the handsome waiter".
The food in Choptank looks high end...but obviously without the high end prices! Clacky ought to seriously consider work as a professional photographer...that shot from the Empire State Building would look great blown up to mural size and mounted on a living room wall!
wow, clackys empire shot is spectacular! and the food looks great in there. i agree with jaws, fancy looking place and can't believe they only charge 5 dollars for a high end hot dog like that! happy birthday to shannon!
@Shannon, Happy Birthday darlin'!!!! i am nominating you for the Nobel Peace Prize for putting up with "Batman" & his trusty sidekick "Robin"...the Dynamic Dickhead Duo from Downtown & Downunder...the perfect pisshead super heroes that just keep giving....keep up the great work martheena & clackanator....its funny i watched 'Hancock' (Wil Smith) last night, maybe you blokes could meet up with Hancock at the Empire State building...see what sort of drama clacky can get youz into!!!
& clacky, come on mate, did you really take that shot? it looks like you have just scanned the postcard you sent me....hahaha!!!!
@GENE: Three and a half days and you're back on the crawl!
@Al: I drank Little Kings in high school, always loved the little green bottles they came in.
@fitzy: ."the Dynamic Dickhead Duo from Downtown & Downunder." HA HA HA! I'll take that as a compliment, mate!
p.s. that migraine picture is hilarious! what was wrong with her?
as intended marty ol' matey!
@rita r: I'm not quite sure what was wrong with her. It could've been me, I seem to have that effect on a lot of women!
@marty: LOL!
The migraine chick looks to me like she is pulling the, oh there's a camera need to fix my hair move. But your caption is more entertaining than just being vain :)
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Hi everybody! Hi Marty
I'm back!! (and will try to be back everyday!) I haven't read your adventures for a while, I have to catch up now! ;)
Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiire! wow how! indeed 5 bucks it's a good price, I would have something to eat like this for 5 bucks in France!! but only alcohool is still cheap in here ! haha and this explain my state of mind lately : drunk again! Hey what do you want! We've got some "Victory Gin" in our beautiful Party!! Eurasia not dead!! buhahaha cheers Georges!
very nice shot Tim ! Enjoy New York as much you can! That shot makes me feel how much I miss New York (sometimes only! when I'm happy drunk!)
Happy birthday Shannon!
Cheers everybody!!!!
http://picasaweb.google.com/m/viewer?source=androidclient#photo/ bronx26yankees/5435916209436499713/5435917716994972514
If anyone ever goes to New York ... and wants good pictures ... go to the top of Rockfeller Plaza instead of the Empire State Building. It's better for the overall view ... and you can't take pix of the ESB from the ESB. (Pix are in the middle of this collection) ...
I loved the one-finger salute photo. And I think "Be Nice or Leave" is a GREAT fucking motto!
What a great night on the crawl. I popped my head into the kitchen to say hello and thanks to the chefs. They immediately wished i would go away. The Burger...where do I start. Amazing. Best burger I've ever had....and we were really smart to get there early as there was a 2 1/2 hour wait for a table when we left.
Fuck it was freezing up there in the wind! We were forced to go to a neighbouring bar to get a snack and another round of drinks. You Yankees are indeed a very kind species to us Aussies indeed. Not only did the bartender give me a free Vodka and coke there...but today we just scored free tickets to Letterman!!!! let me repeat ...FREE TICKETS TO LETTERMAN!!!
Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!! BTW...Wicked was amazing.
@Gene: Going to Top of the Rock after the late show. Hopefully they'll let me take my tripod up. My Nan and Pop will be spewing if they don't get a photo of Shannon and I for the wall.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bronx26yankees/2010JanuaryNYC#slideshow/5435917716994972514
sorry ... my previous link I think is useless .... try copying & pasting this one .....
@Clacky: go to the Top of the Rock before sunset -- and get pictures before & after ... you won't regret it !
http://picasaweb.google.com/bronx26yankees/2010JanuaryNYC#
Sorry everyone .... this is my 3rd link I'm posting for the same thing. I was trying to post a picture show, which is a longer link ... but does not seem to want to display correctly. but ... if you go to this link ... click "slideshow" ... you should get the big pictures -- and you can just click through them ....
@Gene: Definitely a day time thing. We went up Empire state at night so we've seen the lights...
Looking forward to drinking a few with the BBC!
@Fitzy: Yeah man!! That photo is the real deal. I could see Bazz climbing up the side of the Empire State with the lego woman of his dreams getting shot down by the Bi Planes...then dropping a huge brown one...that's the Bazza we've come to know and love.
@365: I think the woman in the background is blocking here ears because the sound of me grunting with that burger in my mouth was ruining her appetite.
To 24 FL.OZ Budweisers!!
@Jason: ?
@Zioum Zioum: Welcome back and cheers to you!
@Meleah: Glad you like the one-finger salute photo and I agree, "be nice or leave" is a great motto!
@GENE: Great photos!
@Tim Clack: How the fuck did you get Letterman tickets! I can't wait to hear about this! You gotta hook up with the BBC when they get into town Thursday. To 24 ounce Budweisers!