Heppy Bears-Day TO YOU!: Lil Places I Love

There's something to be said for casting off all propriety and decorum, throwing all the little rules we make for ourselves out the window. It's easy to get so caught up in life that you forget where you are. And suddenly, you snap out of it and realize you're celebrating someone's 80th birthday at a tawdry Russian nightclub in the heart of Brighton Beach, eating caviar-filled blini and gloriously fried potatoes while you watch scantily-clad Slavic Amazons writhe around to heavily-accented pop song karaoke. This is Tatiana.



Tucked away on the corner of the Brighton Beach boardwalk closest to the border with Manhattan Beach, Tatiana looks like it could be just another cheap and delicious attempt at recreating Odessa in New York, substituting the Atlantic for the Black Sea. But Tatiana is so much more. Every one of these little bistros have their specialties. Volga's where you go for pelmeni, Primorski's where you go for Georgian grub and Tatiana's where you go for weird.

This is what Tatiana says about itself, on its Web site: "Ladies hang on to your husbands and guys don't forget to shave, because there are plenty of people to impress. You do not need a red carpet invitation to see city's top fashion worn in style and such sex appeal that is even desired by many celebrities."

I rarely get the chance now to go to the nightclub part of the restaurant (maybe this summer?), but my first experience was a memorable one. It was family matriarch Khana's 80th birthday, and I was just finishing middle school. The party didn't start until 10 or so, and we entered the grand banquet hall to see table after table stocked high with Russian food. But at around midnight, the real fun began. Six or seven Russian women came out in outfits ... that were just so Bob Mackie-bizarre. As they danced to late 90's techno (Brighton Beach is always a few years behind) like "Blue (Da Ba Dee)", I became fantastically aware that this was why I loved New York. You just won't find anything this flat-out strange in Peoria or Harrisburg, even Philly or Boston, I'd contend.

I still go to Tatiana from time to time (sometimes on momentous occasions, like my last meal pre-Israel,) but it's clear nothing will ever top the memory of a bevy of Muscovite dancers serenading my 80-year-old great-aunt with a loud and raucous "Heppy Bears-Day TO YOU." That experience lives alone.

Tatiana Restaurant and Nightclub
3152 Brighton 6th St.
Brooklyn

Pours a Daydream in a Cup: 'Lil Places I Love

Blog note: In this blog's previous incarnation, Thursdays were the home of 'Lil Places I Love, small peeks inside some of my favorite cafes and bookstores and cinemas and whatever else around this city and around the world. Today, I'm taking it far back to the beginning of high school, to Cafe Max -- one of the first places that helped me believe I was more than just a tourist in New York, that I had claim to this city, too, despite making my home in suburbia.

I spent the summer of 2003 at Dickinson College, taking part in a CTY program on Law and Politics in United States History. Much as I loved the class, the best part of those three weeks were the friends I made. We banded together to draft an ill-advised petition when our TA was dismissed from the program for marijuana possession. We trekked through fields and parking lots on a quest for a movie theater showing no less cinematic greatness than Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde. (How do you feel about that Oscar, Reese Witherspoon?) We talked life.

So when I began JTS's Prozdor program in Manhattan the fall of my freshman year, it was a source of tremendous comfort to be starting out with CTY crony Sarah Schoenberg in tow. Though we've mostly fallen out of touch as of late, she was my confidante and one of my closest friends for a good six months or so. On those lazy Sunday mornings -- as a whole Hebrew school filed out to the Secret Garden Cafe (and its resplendent spinach-and-mushroom quiche is the subject of another post) -- we explored. We walked down to Columbia and popped into the university bookstore. We traveled a few blocks over to the river, snuck up stairs to the roof of JTS. We were little rebels. And then we found Cafe Max.

When you think of intellectuals sipping on cappuccinos, reading Kafka on languid afternoons, you think of Cafe Max. When you think of pretty, witty foreign baristas, you just know they're working at Cafe Max. When you have a good think about Joni Mitchell's "dark cafe days," she'll lead you to Cafe Max.

The cafe is a sort of protective oasis from the hustle and stress of city life. With little to no regular tables and chairs, Cafe Max forces you to sit down and relax, take a half-hour to sink yourself into a faded, plush sofa and disappear. The paintings on the wall drip with whimsy -- a canvas print of "La Donna Piu Grande Nel Mondo" (The Biggest Woman in the World" and a leprechaun painted onto a map of Italy. The food, too, is delicious -- try the bruschetta crostini or the panini parma. But most of all, Cafe Max works for no bigger reason than its general vibe. For a year, Sarah and I found our way for weekly therapy sessions. It remains a special place for me.

Just a note: as I searched online to confirm the address (1262 Amsterdam Ave, btw), I realized that the blogosphere generally refers to my Cafe Max as Max Cafe. Ah well. It will always be Cafe Max for me.