by Grace K. on Main Points: Posh. Comfortable Seating. Half-naked Waitresses (couple of them really should not be, but I'm not the hiring manager). Good drinks (try the Coconut Mojito) - but a few of these can be equivalent to a mortgage payment in some cities). Buddha Bar is a spin-off of the one in Paris, France. Or is it the same owner? I actually have no idea, but I'm told it is very similar to the one in Paris, only on a smaller scale. It's very red, with the usage of a lot of velvet, comfortable and luxurious seating, and packed with a very trendy and hip crowd. Located on the cute street called "Little West Twelfth" - it's THE place to be right now. On the Thursday night that I was there, while there was no line to enter, it was bustling inside with a good dinner and happy hour crowd. We had a waitress who probably considered herself friendly by being conversational, but bordered on rude by saying whatever she felt like uttering at the moment. It was without any bad intentions, so we took it as such, but one or two more steps further, and she was pushing it. She was replaced later on in the evening by another waitress, but this one was worse in that she would barely speak a word, and had a "I'd rather die than be here" demeanor. Tip: being half-naked in a short black, backless dress doesn't necessarily excuse a lack of personality and manners. We ordered several appetizers to accompany our drinks. The Hamachi-Jalapeno roll was extremely tasty, we ended up ordering 3 plates of that one. The Spicy Tuna Roll was mediocre - there was just nothing special about it, and it wasn't particularly tasty. We also ordered the Seabass Roll, which was unusual in that it had cooked seabass in a california roll type of serving. There's a reason the Japanese folks never put Seabass into rolls.... it just doesn't taste that great. They have REALLY good drinks here at Buddha Bar. Their Coconut Mojito was refreshing and I could have had 10 in one sitting - it was sort of like drinking suntan lotion with diced mint, and while that might sound disgusting, it had an unusual effect of whisking you away to some faraway island, instantly. That said, at some $16 for one of these drinks, I limited myself to two. I tried a couple of the other cocktails, which were just as pricey, but notably as tasty. Now, HOW the drinks cost more than the raw fish appetizers, I will never know. Looking over the dinner menu, it is generally an Asian Fusion restaurant, and while the pairings seemed intriguing and worthy of trying - the prices, like the drinks, remained on the expensive side of things. For those prices, I would expect nothing short of a culinary miracle on a plate - but can't comment as we went elsewhere for dinner. Definitely, when in NYC, pay Buddha Bar a visit. It's hip, it's trendy, it's swanky, it's loud but not crazy, and it's a fun place to meet up and hold a relaxing, albeit expensive Happy Hour with friends.
