The H Spot

A little over a year ago, the Atlantic Terminal opened for business right down the street from my apartment. The main attraction was and is Target, which to my dismay has not become an entirely hopeless quagmire of retail despair that almost every other store in Brooklyn becomes. The 8 items in the express lane is still strictly enforced, for example. Anyway, over the past year, more and more stores have opened, including Cold Stone Creamery, Starbucks, and Chuck E Cheese. Your staple suburban American mall stores. The most recent addition is the restaurant Houlihan's, a seemingly more upscale chain restaurant, maybe trying to be a notch about TGIFriday's, Applebees, the Olive Garden, etc. When I first saw it, it looked like just another souless mall restaurant. I couldn't imagine going to a mall to eat a meal or go to a bar. The whole concept just sounds really weird. So Friday night, on a lark, Miss Charming Melodee and I thought it'd be fun to check it out. So we recruited Matt and our friend Carly, and the four of us, after some prodding, headed over to Houlihans.

So we go to the second level of the Atlantic Center, right next to Target and Rockaway Bedding. There are still some people dining, drinking fancy and ridiculous looking drinks, eating chicken wings and what have you. So we get a table for four and dive right in. And you know what? It was totally awesome. I'm not kidding. Houlihans may be my new favorite place. Just the menu alone kind of sold us on it. It was just really well done. Clever, without being too clever. First of all, it was about 20 pages, and bound in a metal binder. It's weird saying that a menu had a certain attitude, but this one did. And the attitude was "Hey, you're in a cheesy restaurant, and you came here for cheap drinks and comfortably generic bar food. So this menu is full of cheap drinks and comfortably generic bar food. Sit. Enjoy. Also, there are no street signs, animal heads, or sports team pictures on the wall, no vaguely ethnic menu, no gimmicky names." I'm shocked to say it, but it was pretty much exactly what I want a restaurant to be. So I had a liter pitcher of Long Island Ice Tea for $6.25. Miss Charming Melodee had three mini martinis. And we ate nachos and chicken fingers, and they were delicious. And at the end of the night, the total was less than $50 for all four of us. God, I love big corporations and their low, low prices.

Also, the menu had a suggested playlist. It featured the Shins, Iron and Wine, Spoon, the Postal Service, and the Flaming Lips. The description reads "We draw from indie pop, modern soul, adult alternative, plus light electronica and underground hip hop to bring you a contemporary sound that radio tends to overlook in favor of formulaic top 40 mainstream hits." OK, so that's trying too hard to be hip. But at least the musical choices were for the most part good.

I feel like if I'd stayed in my hometown, this would be the kind of place I'd go all the time. You know what? I may just go there all the time. I'm not sure what that means, but honestly, it was the most fun night out I'd had in a while.