It was a bland, gray Thursday afternoon downtown, leaves rather than tumbleweed blowing through streets, emptied by the oncoming holiday. I was heading to El Big Bad, a promising new margarita cantina from the look of it, but the bar was temporarily shut for the afternoon as it fine-tuned for a hard opening.
Instead, I slipped into the nearby Goro & Gun Izakaya, to get a take on this classic drink from a bar that's not margarita-driven. The lunch crowd had cleared out, and the space was a welcome refuge from the shopping chaos I'd been fighting for the past few weeks.
I sat down at the bar, next to a pair of out-of-town TV producers who were upset about the vagaries of their programming schedule. At least I assumed they were from California, as they were speaking in a manner reminiscent of 1980s Valley Girls. The two seemed indecisive with the Happy Hour menu, but that was only because the list is complex and fascinating, and the bartender patiently and expertly answered all of their questions.
