Relativity

I was originally going to start this post about my experience at the Ivy, which opened up at what was formerly Christabelle's Quarter in Coconut Grove.

I went there for dinner tonight with Meredith and her fiancee.

But I'm not going to expound on that experience, because it's not worth expounding on (and I know I ended a sentence in a preposition - live with it) It was probably the single-worst meal I've had in Miami, and I eat a lot.

From service to food, it was...ghastly. The straw that pushed this restaurant to the top of my "WORST" list, was when the runner brought me a fillet mignon, and I told him I ordered a New York Strip, only to be told by both the runner, AND the waiter that I most certainly had not.

I'm sorry...but... I wouldn't send meat back, unless it was meat I didn't EFFING order. I'm not retarded, and I don't play games at restaurants -- because I'm usually HUNGRY, and willing to let a lot slide.

In other reviews, even when I'm less-than-complimentary, I always leave the door open to returning.

That said, I will NEVER RETURN TO THE IVY AGAIN. I don't give a good God's fart about the interior, which was, apparently, purchased and shipped to Miami, from old-tyme N'Awlins residences. Pretty decor does not excuse dinner-theater quality food, and below-Denny's-quality service.

After the Ivy, I beamed over to Sugarcane in Midtown for some chick's birthday, where I didn't stay long, but I had a phenomenal drink - a beer spritzer, made with crushed kumquats, Captain Morgan's rum, and Blue Moon. It was delish.

Go eat at Sugarcane. I didn't eat the food, because I filled up on french fries at the Ivy (the ONLY good thing there), but if you're in the market for late tween-aged poon, Sugarcane looks like the place to go trolling. The bar was pulsing with 19-year olds, loudly avowing their affinity for Friday-night firkin'. Probably hetero. Booo-ringggg.

Lastly, I aimed the booze-mobile (my car) to Bardot, after arriving home to the Beach, and pinging back to the Mainland for a post-home invitation.

May I say I love this place, Bardot? Because I do.

If I'm not at Vagabond on Friday nights, I'll be at Bardot. It feels the way the Delano used to feel eight years ago - a pretty, hip crowd, bobbing heads to MGMT, Hot Chip, Cut Copy and Animotion. You know - it feels... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh, yes. Awesome.

While I was there, I ran into an acquaintance of mine - who used to be heavy into the South Beach scene. While discussing the finer points of life, I mentioned to him that I missed the old beach, back when his club, Rumi was in business, and life was different... that everything had changed... for the worse.

He said something interesting, which I'm still digesting -- he said, "Nothing's changed. You're just a different person now, than you were then."

And I aged fifteen years on the spot.

Because he's dead on. While I may pine for Snatch and Suite and the old Mokai (of four years ago) and the old Delano and The State and Jade and Blue, and Opium, while the beach may have changed marginally, the real reason I'm not having as much fun anymore, is that I'm a different person. I'm not buying arm-fulls of champagne at the Rose Bar and skuttling off to the bathroom to bribe the attendant to give me a stall with a fiver...

My crew has shrunk due to Miami's inevitable brain-attrition, and those that stay are a part of a diaspora... mobilizing a crew for a crazy night out is a logistical nightmare, when your crew stretches from South Miami to Aventura.

I guess all that's ever been is still here. If I was six-years-younger, I could rally a crew fifteen-deep to stand in line, pockets full of blow and twenties, for a crazy night out...

But we don't want to feel like shit for three days afterward and be $300.00 poorer for the privilege...

And we don't all live Gables-to-Brickell, get-you-on-the-cab-ride.

And we've got to finish that brief on Saturday, and prep for Monday's deposition on Sunday...

I'm not going to deviate from my previous statements that this City has changed. Because I think it has. It's gone from a mom-n'-pop awesomeness, to Crocs-mediocrity. Independent-to-corporate.

But I guess I have to face the fact that 29-year-old me, is a far different person than 24-year-old me; that in the five years I've been a lawyer (God help me) I've aged exponentially, despite my best efforts to stay a virile young buck with a liver-of steel.

And that relativity stings worse than an 18-vodka-soda-hangover, because, as Benjamin Franklin once said, "Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five."