Once an illegal massage parlor, hence the name, Happy Endings is now a friendly lounge with a hip singles scene that doesn’t guarantee this spot’s former promises of gratification. Getting in is as easy as showing-up and the downstairs lounge still offers private tiled rooms, which are now filled with banquettes and tables. The crowd is informal and hip and they both dance and mingle to DJs that bring the 70s funk on weekends, but aren’t afraid to mix it with a little 80s pop and modern rock. Take a cab here -– the lounge is hard to find and the neighborhood can be sketchy.
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Seriously, this place specializes in milk and cookies. It’s no $100 per entrée hot spot playing “the irony angle,” it’s a café that has found a niche in a city where it seemed that all of the niches had been taken ten times over. Of course, no one pulls off this kind of coupe with store-bought Oreos. This place makes their own type of Oreo with chewy Valrhona chocolate and a homemade cream filling. Coolest of all, this bakery also lets customers create their own cookies — you select from their myriad of ingredient possibilities and they’ll bake up your creation in 20 minutes ($19/dozen). No wonder this place is a favorite for the West Village’s young at heart . . . and their inner-children.
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There are other treehouse hotels in America but none are as dramatic as Cedar Creek. Here, 200-year old trees literally grow through the kitchen, bedroom and living spaces of the five-person bed & breakfast suite. Coolest of all is the observatory tower, which is more than 100 feet (30 meters) above the forest floor and reached via a suspended walkway and the “stairway to heaven” that spirals around a giant Douglas fir.
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Somehow we didn’t get to The World Erotic Art Museum when we took that junior high school field trip to Miami. Don’t you make the same mistake the next time you are in the south Florida.
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Most of the people who religiously played Centipede, Mario Bros. and Frogger did so when they were too young to drink. Good news. Times have changed, but the games remain the same. At this slightly out of the way former warehouse, friendly and grungy locals jingle all the way through the long room with pockets full of quarters. Surprisingly the hip space attracts an even numbers of men and women and while playing video games may seem anti-social, the flashing screens are a distant background for those crowded around the bar.
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LA’s first power plant is one of its latest hot spots. When The Edison Bar moved into a 1910 building near Harlem Place Alley in downtown L.A. it left much of the infrastructure there intact, including the original boiler, power turbines and much of the piping. Around that industrial facade went mood lighting, low-slung bar, atmospheric dance floor and lots of plush nook for eating, socializing and romancing. The result is beyond cool. Come prepared to stand in line and dress to impress — bouncers won’t let you in wearing hats, sneakers or athletic wear.
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And what exactly “accompanies” peanut butter? How about more types of milk than most cows would even consider possible? They serve soy, rice and Lactaid milk here at this dinner that specializes in variations of PB and J. The drinks here are all non-alcohol so while diners won’t have to worry about pairing their Nutella with the right wine, choosing the appropriate beverage for tongue-stuck-to-roof-of-mouth- syndrome is of the essence. The very small place is fun if nothing else, and you’re sure to be in and out in a “jiffy.”
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