BYOZ
This weekend, to celebrate a friend’s Grad School graduation, we’re doing one of our favorite things; A BYO dinner. We love these dinners so much in fact, that a coulple years ago we made them a monthly tradition between our group of guy friends and a great group of girl friends with whom we always hang out. Needless to say, this monthly tradition heavily influenced the conception of Ignighter and its group-to-group model. Going out in groups is what we always enjoyed most, so why not create a structure online to facilitate what we’re already doing in real life?
BYO dinners with a big group of friends are the bomb. In a city like New York, it takes an extra effort to track down complying restaurants, but trust me, it’s entirely worth it.
First of all, you never have to guiltily ponder the eternal non-BYO restaurant question: “should I order another $12 glass of wine?”. When you BYO like we do, the only question you ask yourself is “can we finish the rest of these bottles before the restaurant closes for the night or they kick us out first?”.
That brings me to point two. BYO can be a very interactive experience because you can theme your night and bring fun things to drink. Sure, everybody loves Santa Margarita Pinto Grigio, but that gets boring. When we BOO, we like to coordinate, often times around the food that we’re eating. I usually get yelled at for consistently bringing the same thing to our Asian meals, Soju a Korean kind of sake made from sweet potatoes that tastes like a combination of vodka and sake and can have as high an alcohol content as 45% - hence our cognomen, sadka. I strongly recommend it though, fun drink.
Finally, BYO just creates an awesome atmosphere for enjoying time with your friends. You share food, you share drinks, and everybody relaxes and has fun. If your group wants to go out after, BYO dinners serve as wonderful pregames too.
For all you New Yorkers, below is a list of a few of our recent BYO destinations, let us know in the comments if you have any more to recommend.
1. Hop Kee - This is a divey Chinese restaurant in Chinatown with great food. Conan O’Brien is supposedly a regular. I must add the following disclaimer though: the last time we ate there, our meal ended with giant cockroaches nosediving from the ceiling onto our (mostly) empty plates as the girls ran out of the restaurant screaming. After enough sadka however, it wasn’t such a big deal (see equation below).
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2. Poke - This is a great sushi restaurant on the Upper East Side. It’s better for smaller groups since they don’t really accommodate any tables greater than 6 people. They also only take cash.
2a. Azuki - This sushi joint isn’t technically BYO, but it’s all you can drink sake and wine when you order their Japanese beers. As far as I’m concerned, if there is any dinner outing more fun than BYO, it’s sake-bombing.
3. Panna II - A really good/affordable Indian restaurant decorated with thousands of hanging red lights. You know you’re in for a treat when before the meal even starts, one of your buddies (see below) starts passing Zantacs around the table like it’s the 70s and we’re experimenting with some new recreational drugs.
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