Thursday, I headed to H&F. It had been a while, and nothing eases a long day like a good amount of meat. I arrived pretty early and the bar was relatively quiet, so I close a corner seat next to the pickle fridge and sat down to my meal. To start off, I ordered the pig pik sour, the bourbony drink that i really shouldn't like but I really do. It's sad to admit that I had three of these, but I did. They felt less strong than usual.

Sometimes it's hard to branch out to try other things when things you have already had are calling out to you. It was that way with the steak tartare. This is one of my favorites on this menu and my favorite tartare in the city. It's meaty and salty and just plain delicious. The shoestring potatoes are a nice counterpoint to the tartare to cut some of of the saltiness. Okay, I use the pig pik sour for that, too.

If I had one complaint about the timing of my meal that night, it would be that the gratin of marrow showed up only minutes after the tartare. I'm sure that I'm spoiled so I expect that my courses won't arrive on top of each other, and I also didn't specify that I wanted them separately, but neither was I asked. Frankly, a small issue. Since the marrow is hot and the tartare is cold, I ate the marrow first.

This was a pretty damn good-sized serving of marrow. Normally when I have marrow, I always love the beefy unctuousness of it but this one was really just fatty and greasy. Frankly, I would probably not order this again. The breadcrumb/salt mixture on top was okay, but a little dry, even with the fattiness of the marrow.

I had struck up a conversation with an older guy who sat down next to me and eventually, we ended up talking about manhattans. I had never had a manhattan before. It's another bourbon drink with only vermouth and a maraschino cherry to keep it company. He ended up ordering one for me. It was very strong, but also pretty good. I bought a bottle of this Bulleit bourbon, but the Carpano vermouth... that was a bit pricey for me, as well as only coming in a container that would probably last 100 manhattans...

After all that alcohol, I ordered six Connecticut bluepoints to absorb some alcohol. I think they were a little better than last time, but still not as briny as I like my bluepoints.