On a boringness scale from one to ten (one being the most boring), this place rates a… huh, sorry, I dozed off. This place cannot make up its mind about what it’s all about. It’s part ’30s lounge, part Thai palace. DJs play Sinatra and bad Latin dance music. It wants to be downtown and uptown at the same time. Joints like this end up attracting bitter late-twenty-something women who like martini olives and fried calamari and fantasize about coming home to Ricky Martin after a hard day of shopping for Prada purses. The guys are your general UES fashion victims, complete with the overly dressy casual shoes and 1998 relief pitcher haircuts. The smoother dudes pull stools up to the nice padded bar and drop dough on women who are hoping to be Mrs. dude by night’s end. The whole place smells of desperation and Smirnoff. We once ate at the UWS location and remember the food actually being pretty good–despite the fact we were confused about the whole Thai thing. Hey, the place is more fun than playing with a box of live termites, but the high life? We don’t think so. [MF]
1340 1st Ave.
212/249-3600
hi-life.com