I left the office at 5 or 5:10 the other day. Unheard of. It felt totally weird, too. My former colleague and friend Sara wanted to hustle me out to Cornelius in Brooklyn (on Vanderbilt, ha) to take advantage of their happy hour oyster special - $1 Blue Points. She also thought I'd enjoy their flights of bourbons and scotches.
I am friends with Sara for a reason. She is smart, she is funny, she is driven, and she knows her food. She was right about Cornelius, too.
First, we get some flights. I go for the set of three rye whiskeys, Sara goes for the blended Scotches after realizing she's already tried all the Irish whiskeys listed. For my flight, the bartender selects (based on what, whim?) Russell's Reserve, Masterton's, and Michter's 10 year old straight rye. I can't quite recall what Sara gets in her sampling, other than Johnnie Walker Swing - I remember that because the bartender demonstrates to us how the bottle, with its convex bottom, rocks back and forth, so you don't have to worry about it toppling over on a ship that's bobbing on the waves.
We go for the happy hour special and order six Blue Points, then start tucking into the goods. Of my three ryes, I come to be happiest with the Russell's Reserve, which lies somewhere between the spicy Masterton's and the smoother Michter's. The gigantic and briny raw oysters, which I've only come to like in the past 10 years (digression: after 9/11, my office got dispersed to about five different locations; I went to midtown near Grand Central, and, maybe in some weird therapeutic mode, started going to the Oyster Bar, and got to like raw oysters via liberal doses of condiments), went very well with the ryes, which I think I'm starting to prefer over bourbons.
Next up: baked oysters. All it says on the menu is that they're made with garlic parsley butter and bread crumbs.
But bleu cheese makes a wonderful appearance, along with that red/brown savory sauce that as a non-foodie I couldn't quite identify. Boy, those were gooood.
Still feeling peckish, I persuade Sara to have some mac and cheese with bacon. A portion much bigger than what I'd expect for an appetizer comes out, very creamy with cubes of bacon apportioned throughout. Looking back now, though, I think we should have ordered another platter of baked oysters. The mac and cheese was good, but couldn't hold a candle to that dish.
Somewhere along the line, after my flight, I ordered a rye beer, the name of which, unfortunately, I didn't write down and can't recall. The place, empty when we arrived, started filling up around 7:30 or 8, just as we were winding down.
When I got home and posted on Facebook that "I have a belly full of rye whiskey and oysters," I must have touched some nerve in my friends - the number of likes seemed curiously high. Was it an evocation of old New York? A ravenous crowd? General approval of my dining choices?
Whatever the case, I'd be happy to head to Cornelius again. Leaving work early to get some rye and oysters would be a routine I could settle into.
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