Best of (NRI) New York – Village Voice

best
tandoor UZBEKISTAN COMMUNITY CENTER

Maybe it was the brochure. In it, the tow-headed model who
looks like Kiki, the Norwegian sister of your grade-school crush, is dressed in
gauzy pink-and-lemon pants and lying on a yellow naugahyde sofa. Or she’s
leaning against the stark silver walls of some downtown industrial
something-or-other. She’s too much, her Yogini outfits too Easter-egg sexpot
adorable to believe. YOGINI has a Night Collection too, but really it’s the
pastel, rock ‘n’ roll, midriff-baring line that makes you want to strike a pose
or wait backstage for a sure-thing pass.

Before the ban, KARMA was a sad little psychedelic rec room on the verge of extinction—empty every night except Saturday, when its worn velvet couches and rum-based “bikinitinis” lured B&Ters. Then Bloomberg slapped the ban on every bar within a 10-block radius—except for Karma, which qualified as a tobacco bar on account of its hookahs. Now it still displays horrendous art and employs profoundly clueless barkeeps, but the place is always open and always packed. And smoky as hell.