The Old Cuban
by Celia Sin-Tien Cheng
February 11, 2006
PEGU CLUB
77 W Houston St, 2F
(W Broadway & Wooster St)
New York, NY 10012
212-473-PEGU
I consider myself a pretty open-minded person, but through documenting my food adventures, I realized that I am rather prejudiced. I tend to pre-judge a restaurant by its location, chef, owner, décor, reviews and recommendations even before I have had the chance to try it out. But then again, is it really prejudice or just trying to exert good judgment by assessing the situation with existing knowledge, information gathering, and plain intuition? Most of the time, I feel justified by my initial gut reaction, but occasionally, there are those places about which I have negative premonitions that are proven wrong by actual trial — those are always the best surprises.
Pegu Club is one such place — I was afraid it would be a trendy, pretentious and overly exotic bar that was all hype based on bought publicity — and I was happy to be proven wrong. Okay, so it is a little exotic since it aims to replicate the original Pegu Club, a British officer’s club in Burma from the late 1800s, but our SoHo version does have heart and soul. Its goal is to revive the cocktail culture. I’m not talking about the Sex and the City cocktail culture but the actual art of making good cocktails, the classic Savoy Cocktail Book type of culture — and they are doing a good job. The drinks are fun and delicious, the snack menu equally enticing and the colonial Southeast Asian décor comfortable and relaxing (when not overly crowded).
I only had about an hour and a half to spend here before dinner, but I did manage to have two rounds of The Old Cuban, a champagne mojito, (it was so yummy, one just wasn’t enough) and accompanied my drinks with the smoked trout deviled eggs, which were also supremely tasty. I had to rush off to dinner but was already planning my return to try more cocktails and snacks.
I like Pegu Club’s style. It’s elegant, with the drinks and food portions small, as the idea is to appreciate rather than gorge or get sloshed. The drinks are a bit pricey, but I find it to be the ideal place to meet up for drinks and a light bite before dinner any night of the week. The service was a bit sloppy, with waitresses gliding around as if to showcase their very cute dresses and less attractive attitudes rather than to serve, but at the end of the day, I was so delighted with my The Old Cubans and smoked trout deviled eggs, little could bother me.
