Word, Play

NoLita and Greenwich Village both have some clever store names.

• Trust Fund Baby (kids' clothing)
• A Salt & Battery (fish & chips)
• Tea & Sympathy (parent company of A Salt & Battery)
• Rice to Riches (rice pudding)

Rice to Riches sells nothing but different flavors of rice pudding with fancy toppings, and that, in fashion/figure-conscious Manhattan could be.... well, treading on thin ice. So what do they do? Their brilliant marketing minds have come up with catchy phrases and hung them around the store.

"Eat all you want. You're already fat anyway."

"The calories you consume here are yours to keep."

"We have an agreement with the bank. They don't make rice pudding, and we don't cash checks." ;)

Another phenonmennon worth mentioning is Pinkberry, who attracts long lines with its slightly tart plain yogurt and a ton of healthy topping selections. They have multiple locations in Manhattan - do yourself a favor, avoid the one on 32nd Street. It's unbelievably long. You'd think they're handing out free shares of Apple stock!

Pinkberry does face competition, in the form of Red Mango, who's opened up shop on Bleecker Street, and received rave reviews on Yelp. I had some from both places yesterday. Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference in taste. The girl at Red Mango was friendlier, though.

The entire Bleecker Street was a friendly place. If you took Fillmore and Haight from San Francisco and meshed them together, you'd get Bleecker Street in Manhattan. It has some reasonably price boutiques, and LOTS of Jazz bars and pizza joints, where you can get a slice for $3 (and I did). Their best Jazz bar in my opinion? Zinc Bar. Not in the mood for the blues from Terra Blues, and the atmosphere was definitely different - more tourist-sy, less intimate.

Zinc Bar

I knew I came to the right place when the Brazilian Jazz seeped through the door as I descended down the stairs to the basement at the corner of LaGuardia Place and W. Houston Street.

Velvet curtains. Low ceiling. Dimmed lighting. A live band enthused in the corner of the tiny bar. A pianist, a vocalist, a bass guitarist, a drummer, and a saxphone player completed the set. Brazilian Bossa Jazz is rhythmic and care-free. You naturally get into the groove - it simply draws you in.

It's two-thirds full. A full bar lined with stools, and seven tiny little tables right across. If you manage to squeeze through the narrow walkway between the bar stools and the tiny tables, it'll lead you to the back room with half-empty private booths, where you can still hear the music, but can't see the live band.

This is a place to listen and be heard but not to see and be seen. It doesn't matter how you dress - no one can see the details anyway.

The band members are thoroughly approachable - in fact, they talked to me during the break. Lovely performance. You know they enjoy their art, which makes you enjoy their art even more.

Interested? Check out Miho Nobuzane's (the pianist) album. They also performed Aqua De Beber, of which Sophie Milman delivers a soulful rendition. Enjoy!

Also - tip from a fellow patron - check out the speak-easy at PDT (Please Don't Tell). ;)