Coffee Shop

The Scene
This place is past its prime but still trying hard to remain a scene, with striking retro decor, blaring music, dim lighting--and a waitstaff made up of out-of-work models whose snootiness and famously bad service is both humorous and irritating. The crowd is a mix of late-night NYU students, hungover brunchers looking to be seen, and various Union Square passers-by.

The Food
The most dependable route is to stick to appetizers--the cheese bread is quite good--and drinks. The bar does yeomanly work with cocktails, strangely excepting the acrid house caipirinha. Most of the dishes here are unmemorable, alternating between Brazilian dishes, like the thick, fishy moqueca stew of head-on shrimp, toughish scallops, and clams, and crowd-pleasers like char-grilled hamburgers and veggie burgers. The "gaucho" steak is large, lunkish, and likeable, though hardly prime; Brazilian churrasquino--grilled beef sandwich--is bready and tastes mostly of onion.