La Sala Mala

 Promises of happy hour fun took us to Sala One Nine on 19th street yesterday, which is basically the same restaurant as the regular Sala on the Bowery/Third Ave.  But, for some reason I don't recall the staff at the regular Sala to be quite so...well, I wouldn't go so far as to say they were salty, but they definitely weren't sweet either.  The food of course, was amazing.  My favorites were the almond-stuffed bacon wrapped dates, and the fried goat cheese fritters drizzled with honey and loaded up with carmelized onions.  The sangria wasn't bad either.  They have a good 2-for-1 happy hour special, but only in certain areas of the restaurant (!?).

 Here's a pic of me and the Franimal, quite happy to have been kicked out of our table to make way for a reservation (despite the fact that there were two other empty and eequally-sized tables in the vicinity...)

 Sam and Ashley, pretending not to be crushing on each other.  Such darlings!

 And - oh- the infamous sangria glass.  Ashley almost caused a scene when she tried to slide one of these across the slippery granite bar to where Sam was sitting, only to have it trip along the way, shattering the glass and spilling sangria on the bar.  You would think that broken glasses would be a common occurrence at most bars and restaurants in NYC.  But, apparently not at Sala.  You could literally hear the bartender's heart shatter along with the glass.  He was so upset! And I quote, "It's not funny."

What was funny however, was when Ashley, not 5 minutes later, pulled the same move right in front of him only to have it land successfully in Sam's hand. 

My darling husband, who makes the best glasses of water ever!