I learned a lot on Wednesday night.
I learned that SoHo 7 has a lot more going for it than their ladies night. I learned that “The Audrey” should be served in a martini glass to avoid slippage and eventual spillage and I learned that the Cholive is more chocolate than olive. Discuss
We went to SoHo 7 last Wednesday night looking for nothing but cheap drinks and a hip atmosphere. To our dismay—we got neither
“The Audrey” set us back $10 each, a price I don’t mind paying Friday or Saturday in Milwaukee or any night in Chicago or New York.
Although mixed to a frothy perfection by a true master of the shake, bartender Lee Guk, it was just okay.
Yes it was a frou-frou drink and yes I got what I deserved. Honestly, I’m more of a vodka seltzer two limes type of gal than a strawberry liquor and crème type.
My SoHo 7 virgin of a gal pal committed a crime that would have been punishable by dirty looks on any normal Friday or Saturday night. She accidentally spilled her drink. I’m not talking a small little dribble. I’m talking she took her first sip and the glass slipped right out of her hands and all over the bar.
But since the place was a ghosttown Lee whipped up another pink drink on the house accompanied by a smile and a quick round of cherry bombs; talk about amazing service.
So sweet, so generous and so Milwaukee.
We hit it off with Lee from that moment on.
As I was forcing down my milkshake…I mean “The Audrey”, Lee, the virgin and I started talking about what we usually like to drink when “the Audrey” isn’t on the menu. I said I generally like anything that I can see through and the virgin said that she has never met a chocolate martini that she didn’t like.
Lee jumped at the opportunity to be persuasive and poured us two Cholive martinis. What I saw was totally different from what I was eventually going to find out about the Cholive; frothy, chocolaty and chock-full of sight-unseen advertising.
Needless to say, it was sinfully delicious.
Although dessert-like and much like the general chocolate martini, this one has the key element of the new-age garnish.
the story as I understood it. A couple of late twenty-somethings graduated from Notre Dame, moved to Milwaukee and invented a chocolate truffle shaped like an olive. Yes, shaped like an olive not an olive dipped in chocolate. Very important concept to understand.
Its sole purpose is to be punctured with a stick of any material (the Web site recommends warming the stick first in order to slightly melt the chocolate during the ever important puncture step) and dropped in or placed of the edge of your chocolate drink for maximum garnishing pleasure. Still don’t get it? Well, what a bleu cheese stuffed olive is to a dirty martini the Cholive is to a chocolate martini. The best part? Instead of bleu cheese, the Cholive is stuffed with a creamy ganache. When I found this out I went digging through my drink to find the Cholive nestled at the bottom, waiting for me to drink up.
But, I do not enjoying playing the waiting game and I wasn’t about to back down for a little piece of chocolate heaven. So I plopped it in my mouth without regret before finishing my drink. If there has to be a Cholive faux pas, I guess I committed it.
Two Cholive martinis later, I was falling off of my chair, doing the loud laugh and – if I remember correctly—singing along to “Whatta Man” by En Vogue to anyone who would listen (classy, as usual.
The virgin grabbed my coat, draped it over my shoulders, called my favorite cab company (Yellow Cab, of course) and walked me out. I thought our night was over until I realized I didn’t have my keys.
Five minutes later, I frantically ran back into SoHo 7 looking for them, but no luck. All I can say is, wise city-smart women text themselves their cabbies car number as soon as they get in. You never know when something is going to fall out of your bag.
