It’s 10 P.M. — Do You Know Where Your $1 Blue Point Oysters Are? (aka the “City Crab Weekend Happy Hour Win” Post)

Half-priced appetizers, $1 Blue Point oysters, $3 beers.

If a better Friday or Saturday night deal exists in downtown Manhattan, bring it. For now, City Crab‘s late-night happy hour, which is available at the stately restaurant bar between 10p and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays, is the golden ticket.

(City Crab also runs its happy hour from 4p-7p daily.)

When four of us stopped in on a recent Friday night, we started with a round of Coronas and a dozen Blue Points. Squeeze, sauce, slurp, repeat — these oysters, meaty and lightly briny, are some of the best specimens I’ve had yet, although it should be noted that oysters are still new to me.

(After years of “trying” oysters — e.g. swallowing the slippery thing as fast as possible and hoping I wouldn’t feel it too much or taste too much — lately, I’m slurping them down with the best. This epic night of all-you-can-eat oysters at Bondi Road in LES was the turning point.)

Onto the hot foods — and mas cerveza s’il vous plait.

First impression: Whoa there, these portions are not for the faint of appetite. The crab, spinach and artichoke dip ($6.50/hh) comes out bubbling in a metal cauldron, a basket of thick pita chips ($6.50/hh); both the dip, and the basket of Southern fried popcorn shrimp ($6/hh), went on and on — even among four of us.

The lightest option, a pound of steamed PEI mussels ($6/hh), comes in a beautiful tomato broth laced with garlic and fresh herbs.

For next time, I have my eye on the lobster mac n’ cheese and crab cake bites and … of course, more oysters. (The chef at the raw bar said he shucks 1,000+ oysters a night!)

City Crab, 235 Park Ave. S., near 19th Street, 212-529-3800.

Dinner: The $5.50 Italian Combo Latenight Hero – Hero

I just couldn’t do pizza again; it wasn’t that sort of day. So I was more than delighted to discover that Fat Sal’s, which has no less than four signs proclaiming ”Pizza,” sells a whole lot more. 

Stopping at Fat Sal’s was a strategic move: I was heading out to a bar on a mostly-empty stomach, so bringing food with me was a preemptive move. The chalkboard menu includes full-on plates of pasta, baked pasta dishes, chicken and veal options, pizza (of course), all written in this meticulous block-print handwriting.

I gravitated toward the sandwiches: portable, delicious and good now or in three hours (proven!). I was intrigued by the veal hero (only $7.25!, note to self for later), I opted for that classic cold-cut combo: The Italian. Ham, salami, mortadella, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion.

This thing was enormous! I carried it around tucked into my arm like a football for a while, and when I finally broke it out, it satisfactorily fed three of us.

It also came with a small container of red wine vinegar, laced with herbs, that would have made an excellent drizzle on the whole thing, had I not assumed it was a sample of coleslaw or something and not opened it until there were just a few bites left. Next time …

Bonus: Thursday, April 2, 2009

Taco sharks attack!

For some reason, “staying in” turned into “going out” with the promise that I would be tucked in by 1 a.m., which is in 0:14 minutes from now. Eventually I left my friends half-asleep on a large sectional couch to come home to Trader Joe’s Mini Chicken Tacos, which, at 190 calories for 5 (FIVE!!) of them, ain’t such a bad late-night snack.

I doctored them up with some lime-green secret sauce from a nearby Peruvian chicken place — I know of those who have been known to have such adoration for the lime-green secret sauce that they purchase it by the pint-sized take-out container — and also with some of my newest favorite store-bought lettuce mix, which I can’t stop raving about: Earthbound Farm‘s heirloom lettuce blend.

Maybe  it was the vaguely fin-shaped lettuce tidbit protruding from the mini taco shell, but suddenly the mini chicken tacos became sharks — taco sharks, to be exact — swarming, circling, on my small plate.

You know what comes next: the Jaws anthem. Duh-duh. Duhhh-duh. Duhhh duh de duh de duh (escalates until giant fish emerges from water with gaping jaws).

So this is where I close, with either a “Chicken of the Sea” Jessica Simpson joke (Newlyweds), or a self-to-Jaws analogy (’cause those tacos are history). Take your pick.

COST: >$5
PREP TIME: 3 minutes
DELIGHT FACTOR: Enormous