Macaque Invades CoCo 66

CoCo 66 (66 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222)

CoCo 68 (68 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222)

Talk about inclement weather! It was a Dark and Stormy night . . .when Cafe Drake and Octavio Fenech were saved by a rogue yellow cab and whisked to Greenpoint's premier bar/music venue CoCo 66 for a live performance from our pals Macaque. Chris Hart and Kelly Evers turned up the dial on electro-pop while holding court in the club's back room; pics of the delightful gig can be seen above.

And here's where things turn bad . . . Octavio, Cafe Drake and one half of Macaque - the mad talented beat meister and home chef Christine Hart (you all know 312 Sq Feet by now, please) - scurried next door to the bar's dining outpost - CoCo 68. A worse meal could not be imagined. Subtle, moody lighting and gracious front-house staff tricked us into settling cozily into a banquette table; good rose wine at $7 per large glass also appeased hungry and thirsty kids. But wait. A 25-minute stretch of eternity for dismal starters proved a harbinger for later kitchen disasters. Cafe Drake's Spicy Lime Crab Soup ($5) arrived tepid and thin, with measly chunks of bland crab, stringy amidst an unappetizing gray broth. Salty dishwater. Higher marks were given to the starter of Goat Cheese Brulee with Roasted Beets ($7) but the plating and portions reeked 1993.

Octavio was displeased with a Tilapia Fillet with Jalapeno Creme Fraiche and Avocado ($13) that plopped upon the table approximately 5 minutes after the starter - LUKEWARM. Lacking any expected spice for a dish constructed around the most pedestrian of sea creatures, this dismal failure signified what we've always said: if cooking a fish as banal as tilapia, one better be talented enough to overcome the inherent tastelessness of the ingredient. Tilapia prepared mildly is, in our minds, the equivalent of prose littered with adverbs: weak.

Chris Hart and I both gambled on the Sirloin Burger ($9), offered on the menu with a choice of 4 cheeses. Both of us forgot to specify dairy and the clueless waitress never asked which we would prefer, hence a dry tablet-sized disc of charred dry meat. When we informed our server that a) Christine ordered her meat medium-rare and b) Cafe Drake specified medium, the plates were thoughtfully taken back and replaced with . . . two more crispy silver dollars of dry meat lost in an obese bun. Fries were decent if perhaps originally frozen, and our server kindly supplied us with additional wine on the house as recompense, but at this point little could salvage the most dismal of dinners in many moons.

Avoid Coco 68 at all costs, or stick to bar snacks like french fries and the same tasty drinks mixed next door. Escaping back to the bar proper - the adjacent CoCo 66 - Cafe Drake relished a new libation labeled the Rye Buck ($6) - a sweet/dry concoction of rye whiskey, lemon and ginger. House champagne by the glass (an easy $6 per flute) also proved satisfactory if not special. Now that our claws are out for all to see - and painted Jungle Red - let us go on record saying that a simple Vodka Cranberry ($6) stung the palette with unusual tartness. Thank the Universe for the siren strains of songstresses Macaque, their friendly supporters/crew of fans and a late-night cameo by Cafe Drake pal David Sellers.