Fun in West Chester, PA

This past Saturday night was spent in West Chester, Pennsylvania, whose downtown boasts a plethora of shops, restaurants, bars, and other establishments that cater to its college crowd. Here I'll summarize the places that I visited on this occasion:

Dined at Ram's Head. Friendly people, cute waiter. I highly recommend the pork empanadas, as well as the gigantic bowls of lightly salted, steamed edamame. The empanadas, two of them, are listed as an appetizer but were filling enough for a light meal. Crispy, stuffed with pulled pork, corn and beans, and served piping hot with a yummy dipping sauce. My drink: Heinekin Light.

Exterior of Kildare's West Chester

Drink at Kildare's: SoCo and coke. Atmosphere: relaxed. We spread out in a secluded corner and talked boys. The one disconcerting thing: the life-sized wooden carving of a fisherman that kept watch over our corner; I did about a hundred double-takes over my shoulder thanks to this guy.

One of the bars at Doc Magrogan's

Drink at Doc Magrogan's: fishbowl: of the red variety. I do not drink things that are blue, and I am certain that the Long Island iced tea variety would have been a very bad idea indeed. As it turned out, just getting a fishbowl was a bad idea (for me). However, the music was great and the atmosphere convivial, and we had a great time dancing here. We were given a wide berth and had plenty of room. The place is an oyster house by day, though, a fact that assaults your nostrils as you walk in the front door. If you can't deal with fishy smells, don't come until dinner is done being served.

Drink at Barnaby's: none. Couldn't get close to the bar. The dance floor upstairs was absolutely packed, so much so that I did not enjoy myself at all. Too many sweaty bodies, too many creepy, grabby guys. As we were leaving, Jen and I took a shower in somebody's drink; we think he dumped it on us on purpose as he passed. Whether it was accidental or not, my hair smelled like tequila for the rest of the evening, which I did not appreciate.

Bar the Pale Horse

Pale Horse: a smaller venue that hosts live music with more frequency than other places in the area. When we were there the music was entirely too loud, but the place was full of tables and cozy chairs; a place more suitable for social drinking than for dancing.

Things I learned from this evening:

1. If you are a small-ish person, like me, you simply cannot put an entire fishbowl's worth of alcohol and Kool-aide into your stomach in a small amount of time. I drank half the thing, experienced feelings of nausea, and gave up.
2. I really don't care if I never dance at Barnaby's again. The majority of the people there were obnoxious; unless getting drinks dumped on you is your thing, avoid after 1 a.m. or so.
3. If planning to spend several hours on this town, wear comfy shoes; there's a large concentration of places on a few streets and you'll probably go back and forth a lot like we did. The Steve Madden cowboy boots looked fabulous but were agony by 2 a.m., with two hours to go.

The End!