Bar Shots: Grand Street

Cafe Cornichon

As we finish our wine, a horrible woman and her elderly parents come in. The bar is quiet enough—the indie-ish oldies and wailing world music have ceased playing—that we're able to hear this woman recount the entire plot of a horrible-sounding book, in excruciatingly boring detail, to her parents and the bartender. ("So they got this car, actually I think it was one of their friends' cars or something, or maybe it was his car, I don't remember, but actually no, it was definitely this one guy's car, I think?...")

We move away from her into the empty rear area (pictured), and had it not been raining, we would have gone all the way back into the garden. Usually an almost hypnotically calm spot for a glass of wine, Cornichon tonight was sweaty and weird. Moving across the street...

Cafe Cornichon (251 Grand St. between Driggs and Roebling Sts., 718-599-3840)