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How was it last night? It was great! Full of surprises! You know how it's impossible to get a reservation at the Spotted Pig, right? But you can always try the walk-in option. You walk in, give your name to the host/hostess, they tell you the waiting time is 2 hours, or that you'll only get a table after 11pm, and then you decide if you wait or if you go somewhere else. And that's how it works with most restaurants in NY if you don't have a reservation. Anyway, P and I were there at 8:30pm but we still had to wait for the other girls. When the host told us that we would only get a table after 11pm, we decided to wait for the other girls and then define together what to do. Maybe in the meantime we would get lucky with some cancellation and get a table sooner. The girls were late. C arrived, then L and when G finally arrived it was past 9pm. We had a nice spot by the bar, and had drinks, and were chatting while we waited. G is one of those super connected people who can get you anywhere anytime by using her name or her highflier friends names. She had cancelled her other dinner plans to join us but for some reason she had kept the table at the Standard Grill for 10:30 pm. Just in case. The Standard Grill is simply the it restaurant of the moment. Hot spot. Full of celebs, especially now that it's Fashion Week. So, we were good. We would either get lucky and get a table at the Spotted Pig or we could leave on time to be at the Standard Grill at 10:30pm. Anyway, we're there, waiting, drinking, chatting, and this guy stops and asks us if we're comfortable, if we wouldn't prefer to wait for our table in their other room upstairs. We hesitated. In our heads, we were trying to decide if it was worth moving from the good spot we had or if we would even wait for a table because we had just been talking about the Standard Grill option. But the guy discreetly insisted that we would be much more comfortable upstairs where we could all seat, have drinks and snacks, until our table was ready. We followed him. But when we got upstairs, where the second floor of the restaurant is, he continues through the crowd and leads us through a hidden door. Suddenly, we're not in the restaurant anymore, we're in the stairs going up one more floor to what looked like an attic. Cool, very secretive. He muttered some kind of password and a door opens. It's like a private space, like someones apartment turned into a lounge. There are board games at the tables so that you're entertained while you wait, some are playing and others are just socializing ... Anyway, we felt like VIPs, even more so when we realized that the guy who suggested we followed him upstairs was not one of the waiters. He was the owner. We loved the idea of this hidden, exclusive lounge and the fact that the owner picks and chooses whomever he wants to let in. But, as much as we were having fun, the wait for a table was really too long. We decided to leave to go to the Standard Grill, which is just 3 or 4 blocks away from the Spotted Pig. And I had been at the Standard Grill last week, Friday and Saturday, just because the friend of a friend was staying at the Hotel and therefore the concierge guaranteed the reservation for us. But G had a table for 6, no problem. I have to tell you, the burger is delicious. And I even had my celebrity-spotting moment. I saw Rachel Zoe. Maybe you don't know her. I do because she has a show about being a fashion stylist, and I mean, she's the fashion stylist, she dresses Cameron Diaz, Sandra Bullock, you name it. Anyway, as I was saying ... We had our dinner and then went to the it bar of the moment. Yes, you get it. THE hot spot of the moment. The Boom Boom Room at the Standard. An amazing bar/lounge, on the 18th floor, glass windows floor to ceiling, great views of Manhattan. I was there last weekend and had an amazing time with F and R. But this time we couldn't get in, in spite of all the names that G flashed at the hostess. My gain. Why? Because we couldn't get in the Boom Boom Room, G took us to the Soho House. I had never been to the club, just the rooftop. But that's another story. It was when my friend Miguel was visiting a couple of years back, we had a Sex and the City moment at the Soho House. Well, a Sex and the City moment minus the embarrassment! Remind me to tell you this story some other time. Back to the club ... Very exclusive, members only. What you get is your typical (nouveau) rich and/or eccentric crowd, artists and bankers mixed together, or just spoiled kids with lots of money to spare. I have to say that the guys come on to the girls like in any other place, or was it the Valentine's Day vibes in the air? Anyway, we had a great time, mostly because the night turned unexpectedly and surprised us at each turn. It was a very new-yorker Friday night out with the girls!