Oct 24 2010 07:22 PM
I met a friend at Darryl Strawberry's restaurant this afternoon for lunch.
Though I live only 10 miles from there, I don't think I'd ever been to Douglaston before: It's like some Nassau County town with old trees and tudor homes. Strawberry's is more than anything a neighborhood joint across the street from the LIRR station. Parking looks to be a bitch but I was very lucky and found a spot directly across the street.
I was a few minutes early so I went and waited at the bar. Very sweet bartender. Local guy on the next stool runs down a long list of places this place used to be. The decor is region-specific neighborhood sports bar, bricks, wood and flat screens, with probably a little too much Halloween seasonal makeover. There's a replica Shea locker with a Strawberry jersey and Mets stool, but they covered the front with a kitschy spider web. Be warned the memorabilia is not strictly Met-centric, he's got a 96 MFYs WS trophy, some waitstaff wore shirts with No. 39 on the back, etc etc.
The NFL games start and the crowd gets thicker. My friend arrives and decide on a table rather than the bar.
That was kinda dumb, since it took me away from Sweety the bartender and saddled us instead with Surly the waitress. Surly was cute also but slow and, I guess, overworked and unhappy about it. I like cute harried waitresses in NYFD football jerseys as long as they are cheerful, but Surly was not. We waited forever just to get some menus. Then they brought out our wings but without the blue cheez, and Surly was nowhere to be found for minutes that went by like hours. I could smell the friggin wings right there on the table but could not eat 'em. Torture!
Once we got the blue cheese, the wings were sports-bar appetizer acceptable. Sweety had recommended I get their special burger with brisket bbq stuffed in it, but I reigned it in slightly and ordered the "1961 burger" (another nod to the MFYs) with thick bacon and sweet onion sauce on an English muffin. It was messy but I killed it. They serve those crunchy-type bar fries that sit like a brick in your belly, you might want a salad instead but I liked the burger.
Surly was hardly around -- an entire table of young guys in Jets gear sitting near us gave up waiting for someone to take a drink order and filed out -- but I guess at one point she came by and I joked that she could tell the boss that I was enjoying the burger and she said, "Oh you can tell him yourself, he's right over there!"
Turned around and there he was, sitting toward the back.
I worked a genius plan to encounter him before we left -- get up to use to john after paying the tab and get him on the way out, genius! -- but I come out of the room just as he'c coming out of the opposite door to the kitchen! I panic here .. I can't introduce myself to Straw here! He knows I've just been in the men's room! So I just linger there as he goes back to his seat. Finally I gave the phone to my buddy and asked him to shoot stepped up just as he turned away from another dorky well-wisher, shook his hand and mumbled something like "Thanks!" (for what?) and turned for the shot. Copped a feel of one shoulder and can report it was massive and firm as a car seat. Scurried out of there all gay and stupid, texting the photo to friends as I drove home.
