Fun at Son Cubano; Not So Much at Thom's Bar

We won't be able to make a reservation, as Angelina is "waiting for data." Angel's so pretty that when she falls into your line of sight unexpectedly, you think for a moment that she must not be real. When I see her through the doors of 60 Thompson, she's wearing a navy pique sleeveless V-neck Polo-esque minidress. Knowing my frugal friend, it's a sample sale conquest.

How can she look so green-eyed and fresh when I'm melting? The heat has made me cranky. I ask the doorwoman if the bar upstairs serves food. "I don't know." (It doesn't.) So we turn to the restaurant, Thom. We're there before 7, but the hostess doesn't know if she can seat us unless we sit outside. The sidewalk linen-set tables look inviting, but the heat is too much for me. The charmless maitre d' says he's booked until 10:30. Wheedling doesn't help. Angelina says let's get a drink upstairs.

The hotel reception area has natural light and plenty of oversized gray-toned sink-into cushy things to sit in. The bar has perfect lighting, soft wheaten skins on the floor, a bamboo-shaded terrace, big mirrors, fun furniture, brown club chairs with low black tables and upholstered bench seating against the walls. Ooohh...we walk all around it like we're checking out a model home. We'll take it. "Cool, this is cool," we murmur. Angel's not comfy on the bench sofa though, and she almost knocks the cocktail table over twice with her sky-high legs. It's too hot. We wait for a waitress. And wait. Angel orders a mint-laden fizzy rum mojito. For me, the waitress recommends the Thom house cocktail, a minty martini made with Absolut citron. She's right. Yummy, flat Fresca-y sweet, but not too. Angel asks for nuts, which are brought eventually. We prefer the punch of the cocktail to the mojito highball.

It's a sophisticated, well-dressed crowd. Studied casual, although I spied a gorgeous cream-colored suit on a broad-shouldered frame. Danceable pop in the background. A guest who's been working out, or maybe just crossing the street in this heat storm, peers into the entryway and rightly declares himself "too sweaty" for the environs.

"I know so much more about what men are like now. Oh and I know you know even more. How can we warn girls in their 20s?" Angel poses quite sincerely. Uhh...seminars? Mass e-mailing? Walk through the subways with a bullhorn? She shows me a picture of a bridesmaid's dress she bought for an upcoming wedding, which is puffily more appropriate for girls who don't have Angel's smokin' bod. And it's $300. Ouch. She digs my suggestion of auctioning it off on eBay postnuptials. I recall her walk down an aisle in a form-fitting gown of Crayola carnation pink (who would've thought that would work), a tan siren with falling dark locks. Looking better than Barbie, a stunning incongruity in the creepily airless pallor of the church. The short blondes fared less well with that dress.

She tells me that a girl in her extended family called her as a reference before calling me to go out. Angel had said to her, "Lane? Don't worry about Lane. She always goes right to the handsomest guy in the bar." Why wouldn't you? "Lane. I nearly got into a fistfight in the Hamptons because of Lane." Oh, that. The girl called me the same day.

A deeply tanned boutique broker sits next to us and waits for a waitress. And waits. He sports a "Greed is good" 'do. Don't worry, we teased him about it. Another waitress comes over who says she's never waited tables before. But she is beautiful, like if Tabitha Soren were sexy. Broker offers us drinks. He's waiting for friends to eat downstairs. We say we couldn't get a table. "Oh, you want to eat here?" I size him up and foresee ensuing hassle; I don't think he'll be able to add us to his table easily. I quickly spit out, "Oh, we're going for Cuban food." Then his deeply tanned friend comes in who arranged the financing for the place. Uh, yeah, I guess they could have got us added to their table. But it's too hot to grovel. We wait for our check. And wait.

Angel asks the cabbie how he can tell what avenues an address is between, given the number, and he presents his lecture on the subject, but I can't follow; my brain's been simmered in its own juices. The heat. You can't believe you're outside; your body tells you you're in a dark, dank, windowless concrete prison at high noon in a Central American country so small no one knows its name, but your eyes show you boys on cells outside the bars, velvet ropes, cabs and lights and dogs. I tell Angel, well, if he doesn't want a baby, let contraception be his responsibility and she'd be pregnant, what, within a few months? Oh less, she says.

At Son Cubano, the upbeat live music makes me dance as soon as we enter; it's heavy on the hand drums. (Son is Cuban dance music.) We see mostly nondescript folks in their 20s. We're first offered a banquette adjoining a very small child. Try again. It's so dark that even using the candle I have some trouble reading the long menu. Precious chandeliers, tiled walls and amber lanterns enchant. Angel admires the long-haired bartender, but says, "He's the type just to screw."

The waiter-recommended mojito is creamy, mint-filled and thick, but has an overwhelming licoricey element. I can't take licorice, anise, fennel, coriander or anything in that vein in quantity. It's a real comedown after that Thom's cocktail. I stop trying after half. Angel finishes hers, but thinks $10 is too much for it.

We order a few things and ask the waiter is that good for us. Yes, he says he'll check in and we can order more if we like. A clear bubble-glass carafe of tap water is brought. A loaf of stale air posing as bread is set on the table. They must have it specially baked by their local school cafeteria.

We reminisce of a day on a boat in Cozumel. She yells, still furious with me for not following through on a studly überman who had liked me in Newport. She says she had considered setting me up with a guy from work, but then thought better of it, as he only likes "preppy" girls and I've been deemed a "trendy" girl. I could learn to be preppy. "But I know you like 'em young too," she says. She asks me what's my type, so she can keep an eye out. "Real clean-cut, pale, I like uhh...Eagle Scouts." "Huh. Is that like a word for that type?" "No, I mean I've gotten along better with guys who've been Eagle Scouts." Her face says she is thinking, "If you can't say anything nice..." My dad was an Eagle Scout, maybe that has something to do with it.

She warns me Italian men are no good. I have four Italian girlfriends and all of them wound up with non-Italians. I've dated only one Italian, but he held back, saying I was too good for him.

An appetizer of marinated shrimp ceviche ($9.95) is pink and attractive in a bowl of lettuce topped with onion and radish, but its primary flavor is vinegar and the shrimp are a little sad. A side of flattened fried green plantains ($5.95) comes painted with mojo. The citrusy, garlicky mojo sauce is dynamite, but can't compensate for the starchy and bland plantain pancakes. A mixed platter for two ($14.95) is a generous supply of food you don't really want. Although we both like the big cubes of deep-fried pork topped with wilted sweet onion; these masitas are tender and moist. Homey, like stew on a wintry Sunday. The papitas rellenos, fried balls of mashed potato with a speck of sweetly sauced meat picadillo within, are tacky. The empanadas, soulless; munching the pastry of the pocket offers no joy.

Croquetas are deep-fried dough cylinders. There's nothing particularly wrong with them, I just don't need another. Also a somewhat crumbly tamale with teeny bits of pork throughout that was okay, but mostly succeeded in reminding me how much I like the dense, strongly corn-flavored firmness of the serotonin-pumping tamales at Old San Juan. This platter's accompanying mild red sauce has not enough pow to save its offerings. It's all a small step up from the hors d'oeuvres in your frozen-foods section. First I talked our way out of a free dinner, then I brought an Italian girl to a place with so-so food. I apologize and promise I'll cook us a good meal soon.

I love the music, but it's loud and Angel's conversation is truly compelling. She doesn't know how not to speak from her heart. The sound level is optimal for dining with your more boring friends. She demonstrates on me the way she repeatedly jabbed another girl strongly in the chest during an argument and then the way she had intensely screamed at a man. She's very impressive. Maybe she's trying to teach me. A close girlfriend of hers had told me not two days before that after I left a party someone had said that I was pissed off at him, which was news to me. I had demanded of her, "Do I seem like someone who gets pissed off all that often?" She had replied, "I have seen you pissed off," smirk, "but it's not very threatening." Later, the same girlfriend praised Angel, saying she's "a tough girl. She doesn't take any shit from people."

A group of good-looking gays move from table to bar in relaxed socializing, enjoying their evening. Angel wants to know, "Did my outfit look sleazy as that...?" "No! Was I underdressed?" "No!"

Our drinks and meal have been a chore, so we're not eager to try a dessert. I wouldn't order food again at Son Cubano, but it's a pretty place with fun music. So bring your own friends, order some beers and try to hook up with the bartender.

Thom's Bar, 60 Thompson St. (betw. Broome & Spring Sts.), 219-2000.

Son Cubano, 405 W. 14th St. (9th Ave.), 334-6411.