I Began To Wonder: Why Am I At Houlihan's?
Ah, New York. It's the best date a girl can have—for a while, anyway. One minute, the city is taking you to a shady stretch of the West Village to lazily browse at the Biography bookstore while eating cupcakes frosted with pure charm from Magnolia Bakery, and the next minute it's dragging you through the dark, musty, people-clogged corridors of Penn Station looking for a chain restaurant. Oh wait, that's not New York. That's Sex & The City. My mistake.
Of course, the characters from Sex & The City never went to Penn Station. Why would they? Penn Station is dingy, depressing, gross, and (shudder) a train station, and the characters on Sex & The City never really even ventured into the subway. But Penn Station is the only place in New York City that has a Houlihan's. Which means that Houlihan's: Penn Station is the only place in New York City where you (and your girlfriends!) can drink Sex & The City-themed cocktails made with Skyy Vodka (the official spirit brand of the movie! Accept no substitutes!), and hopefully get drunk enough to forget that you're in a Houlihan's in Penn Station drinking a promotional cocktail that tastes like spiked Dimetapp called "X Boyfriend."
Unfortunately, you won't get drunk enough to forget that you're in Houlihan's: Penn Station, in part because there's not a lot of Skyy Vodka in a Skyy Vodka X Boyfriend, and Skyy Vodka X Boyfriends cost a ridiculous $10 each, but also because it's hard to forget your surroundings when you're sitting at a table in an underground, shallow-ceilinged, hospital-green room next to a "window" with a direct "view" of the Roy Rogers restaurant next door. I know, because I went to Houlihan's: Penn Station to try the Sex & The City cocktails last night, and the experience is forever burned into my memory, and still lingering in my esophagus.
(objects in this picture are 50% more depressing than they appear)
There's been a lot of talk lately about how Sex & The City changed New York, and it's true. For instance, before Sex & The City, the Houlihan's in Penn Station didn't have an aggressively mauve "Diva" poster on an easel sitting in its doorway to lure in commuters/latent SATC fans with an open invitation to "Get your girl on."
(Ugh. Thanks for ruining Houlihan's, Sex & The City. It's really lost its charm.)
Incidentally, this poster depicts both the exact opposite of what it's like to drink "Diva Martinis" at Houlihan's: Penn Station, and yet somehow captures the inherent awfulness of doing so. Weird, but true.
There were five "exclusive Sex & The City martinis" available for (cautious) consumption, each with its own hideous character description: