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…”