PhotobucketThe Masked Barfly has joined the prob­lem drinkers in Cuba Mall. No, I haven’t start­ed quaffing meths or wrestling din­ers for their steaks (it’s all a filthy lie): Good Luck have gone over­ground and now have an out­door drink­ing area in the mid­dle of the mall. I sup­pose the local retail­ers don’t mind peo­ple drink­ing in the streets as long as we’re pay­ing them $15 a pop for the priv­i­lege.

A cou­ple of us flies were still buzzing after the Ornette Cole­man gig, and after a quick stop at Kazu to fill our abdomens (and to sup on salt-rimmed sake & ton­ic — so wrong and yet so right) we head­ed off to Hap­py for the rumoured “after par­ty”. Well, it was def­i­nite­ly after­wards, and I sup­pose it was a par­ty, but unless we left too ear­ly (the New­town bus was call­ing) there was no sign of Mr Cole­man or even one of his myr­i­ad bassists. Oh well, a Chris Knox sight­ing will do for now.

So, “El Toro” is it? It seems all things Mex­i­can are hot right now, and while it’s not exact­ly a tequi­la bar, Viva Mex­i­co from the much-missed Wake­field Mar­kets will be mak­ing a wel­come return. It opens this Fri­day at the back of the Left Bank, com­plete with old favourites like Divorced Eggs and new hip­ster-friend­ly Dios de los Muer­tos decor.

Speak­ing of come­backs, Herd Street Brasserie is appar­ent­ly set to reopen next month. Let’s hope that the new own­ers are more savvy than the orig­i­nal ones: though let’s face it, that would­n’t be hard. And the Masked Barfly also hopes that they con­tin­ue an empha­sis on alco­hol as well as food: all togeth­er now, “Oh, I do like to drink beside the sea­side…”