Midtown Lunch

If you like to eat, chances are you like to drink (read: a lot of you are freakin’ lushes), so I thought maybe it was time to introduce a happy hour column to the site. Every week, our Happy Hour Correspondent “Mamacita” will post about a different bar in Midtown that fits the Midtown Lunch mentality: unhealthy food, not lame (unless it’s lame in a cool way), and most importantly… cheap.

The first time I went to the Judge Roy Bean it was a holiday weekend and the place was mostly empty, save for a few guys eating at the bar and a family of tourists seeking rest at a table. I ordered a well drink. My friends got a beer. In general, I was not really impressed. There wasn’t a happy hour, prices were in the $6-$8 range, my drink came in your usual medium sized glass and was just right, but not potent. The place was ok, but somewhat lacking. I couldn’t get past the fact that I was drinking in Midtown. Now let’s fast forward to this past Wednesday.

I needed a bar to review and I figured I’d give the Judge a retrial. I called upon a couple of single girlfriends and some pals and we met up after work. I was the second to show up. By then my blonde friend had an Orange Stoli and soda half finished and was telling Derek, the Irish bartender, how cute he was. I got a black and tan and soon realized that, “Wow, there’s a bunch of hot guys here!” You see babes, I’m not calling this review ladies night at the JRB because it was the bar’s theme night. Oh no, as the night drew longer it was obvious by the healthy dose of young man-meat that filled the bar that this was the place to be if you were a single lady.

Hellllllooooo Derek!

Once everyone arrived I switched over to a Jack and soda. Then I had my second realization, “My God these drinks are in pint glasses! And they are strong!” Derek the bartender gave me a fiver to put in the jukebox and the night was off to a stellar beginning. We all figured given the sizable drinks that we should have some food.

The menu at JRB covers the usual bar items: burgers, mac n’ cheese, chicken fingers, sandwiches, and soup of the day. We chose the appetizer combo platter that came with chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks and stuffed potato skins. Let’s just say, if I weren’t drunk and rocking out to Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” I wouldn’t have ingested this stuff. The mozzarella sticks were good, but the potato skins had sour cream spread under the mix of cheese, bacon and mushrooms and tasted like they had been fried earlier and only microwaved.

The chicken fingers on the other hand were just weird. They had taken a chicken breast and actually cut ‘fingers’ into it and then battered and fried it. It looked like some sort of squid-like hand. Nevertheless, the bartender took care of us and gave us a round of buy backs and soon we were surprised to notice that we had been drinking in midtown till midnight: a huge change from my last experience.

Just like a girly drink with a cherry on top, so did this night end. We paid up and Derek treated us all to a round of shots on the house. What a gentleman.

THE +

• Liquor drinks in a pint glass!!!
• Friendly (and HOT! bartender)
• Generous pours and possibility of buy backs
• The place is bumping on a weeknight! Who would have thought Midtowners partied till the AM??
• There’s a farmer’s market of men here ladies!

THE –

• Food is bland and not worth the price unless you’re drunk
• How many times can I say this: You are drinking in Midtown people!!
• Big possibility taking home your coworker (or someone else’s). How awkward would that be on a Monday!

Judge Roy Bean, 38 W. 56th St. (btw. 5+6th Ave.)