Hookah Bars NYC- Luxor Lounge

I went to the Luxor Lounge tonight in the west village of manhattan for some shisha and hookah smoke. it was a below average experience as the hookah that they gave us was very small and the hose was leaking. the shisha quality of this place is below par and the mixed tobacco hookahs are mediocre. My problem tonight was that the hookah and shisha combo made the taste way too sweet and the flavor degenerated very quickly. the first few pulls were definitely the best and the flavor turned to a sort of licorice taste within minutes. we had a lot of problems with this hookah tonight to say the least. the service was however better but the shisha and hookah experience was terrible. im not sire what it was about this hookah and shisha combo, but within fifteen minutes of smoking the hookah it seemed like it was dead. this should never be the case as a good hookah should ast for at least an hour. the leaking hose was very frustrating and it kept me desiring a better setup. we had to sort of hold the hose with a very tight fist in order to make it stop leaking and even that did not work too well. too often throughout the night i was pulling on the hose with my breath and nothing was happening. the water was not bubbling and there was no smoke coming out of the tube. the only good thing about this hookah was that the blow off valve was working properly and so any stale smoke that was left in the hookah was quicky ejected.

Hookah Bars NYC- Hookah Bar Number 10

Ok well i have to admit that i have been slacking in the shisha and hookah department. i have a great big list of hookah and shisha bars that need to be reviewed and i just have not had the time lately to go out and review one. i was supposed to go to a hookah bar in the east village tonight but yet again i got tired and fell asleep. well this is just going great for me. i have one job to do and that is to go out and review hookah bars and smoke shisha. what a hard life i have! i get paid for going out and smoking shisha out of hookahs at hookah bars and i cant even do that! this is kind of silly because my only responsibility is going out and basically having fun. i guess i am not really doing my job to its fullest potential. Well i am making a commitment to you and myself that i will have two more hookah bars reviewed by early next week and they are going to be of the hookah bar in williamsburg, brooklyn and another hookah bar on the lower east side. I am going to go to the hookah bar on the lower east side to smoke shisha tomorrow night and the night after i am going to williamsburg to smoke some shisha at the hookah bar off of bedford ave. Cheers!

Hookah Bars NYC- Williamsburg Part 3

i was walking around bedford avenue today and i realized that i need some shisha in my life. i needed a hookah right then and there and if i could not have it i was going to be mad. i guess i was going through acute tobacco withdrawl. so i went to north 4th stree between bedford and driggs in search of this hookah bar that i have heard so much about. when i got there it looked in the window and it looked like it was closed. i knoked on the door and no one came to rescue me. I heard that this place was in the process of closing down but i did not think that it was going to be so soon. whenever i walk by this place it always seems closed and there is a sign on the window that says that it is up for rent. now sometimes i drive by this bar and i see that there is shisha and hookas being smoked and i wonder if i should go in. so one day i mosied on in there and i found the door open but there was no one in there! i could not understand why there was on one there but i figured this was the reason that they are closing the place soon. I still have really gone there to smoke hookah and shisha but how bad could it be? the area is good and the people are very nice in this neighborhood but i guess that there is not much demand for hookah bars or shisha tobacco in this area which makes me sad...

Hookah Bars NYC- My Own Bar

Today I am not going to review a hookah bar but I am going to tell you about how last night I turned my house into a shisha and hookah bar. We had a party and throughout the course of the night we ended up smoking a lot of shisha and packing wuite a few hookahs for other party goers. We started out the night with some starbuzz melon shisha and packed it into our three hose hookah from Israel. The crowd at the party started cheering as soon as we brought it out and we could not get enough hoses attached to this thing for the amount of people who wanted to smoke it. It was kind of ridiculous. Everyone started circling around the hookah and waiting for his or her turn to get it. People started grabbing for it and were relentless unless they got a quick puff of our magical shisha and hookah. The party was lots of fun and we entertained almost everyone with our shisha and hookah varieties plus of course beer, wine, and liquor. We brought out many shisha varieties throughout the night which proved very useful for the shisha craving crowd. The best part of all of this was, we did not charge a thing! And the hookahs were blazing all night long as we broke out all three of our hookahs and turned my house into an all out hookah party! Tomorrow we will get into our review of the Hookah Bar in Williamsburg! Enjoy.

Hookah Bars NYC- sorry

Hey there! im sorry i have been absent on my shisha and hookah bar reviews for the past week! i have been very busy on vacation in jamaica! while i was there i did not get a chance to smoke shishs or a hooka one time! what a bummer! i searched for hookah bars and i found that most of the time when i mentioned them people were confused and thought i wanted to buy pot. this was not the case and i was totally let down by the lack of shisha and hookah smoking that goes on in jamaica. i ended p sitting on the beach every day wishing i had a hookah to smoke. next time i travel i am definitely going to check my luggage and bring a damn hooka and some shisha! this was a major damper on my trip all together but on the upside i will be getting to more bars this next week to review more hookahs and shisha flavors available in NYC! Stay tuned!

Hookah Bars- Hookah Cafe Part 6

So once again here we are trying to finish up our extremely long winded review of the hooka and shisha bar The Hookah Cafe. In our last post we introduced you to the 3000 year old shisha recipe made from raw sugar cane called Saloum. now this is not on the menu at the Hookah Cafe and is available only by special request. Its is extremely strong and can knock you out with a few strong pulls. So here we are and i will now take you step by step into my experience of smoking the fine shisha called Saloum. Now as i said in the last post, the saloum needs to burn very hot so there is no tin foil on the top of the bowl and the Lemon Wood coals are placed directly on top of the saloum shisha hookah. The taste of the tobacco is pure and unflavored. the taste of the burning coal in direct contact with the saloum shisha, produces a very authentic and heavy tobacco with a very hot taste.
The Hookah Cafe is the kind of hookah bar in new york city where you can really make yourself at home and feel free to get comfortable. there are a few requests by the owner Ayman like, this is a place to bring people together but if you bring a girl please keep your hands off of each other. you can hold hands but to uphold the respect of the Hookah Cafe as a lounge for people to converse, please save anything more for afterwords. Believe it or not i still have more to say about this wonderful hooka palace, so tomorrow i will most likely blow the rest of the shisha smoke at you!

Hookah Bars- Hookah Cafe Part 4

Hey there! Ok so here is a little bit more on the details of the wonderful Hookah and Shisha spot The Hookah Cafe. The Hookah Cafe is located on the upper east side on 60th street between 1st and 2nd avenues. The owner, Ayman, is probably the most knowledgeable person on the subject of hookahs and shisha both historically and experientially that i have ever met. He explained a few things to us while we were there. First was that when mixing shisha flavors, it is best to look at the type of plant that you have rather than the preferred tastes in order to get the most full experience. He says that you flavors acoording to their plant type. for instance, you dont mix apple with melon because apple is a high tree fruit and melon is a low tree fruit. you would not mix mango and watermelon because again, watermelon is a fruit that comes from the low ground and mangoes grow high up in a mango tree. so when mixing flavors you want to keep like plants together. You can mix apple and mango or pomegranate because these are all high tree fruits. when we asked him about the process of making his special four apple blend, he had a very interesting answer. we asked what makes a four apple a four apple? he said that an apple does not taste the same when it is very small, as it does when it is more mature, as it does when you would pick it from the tree, or as it would taste when it would naturally fall from the tree. these are his choices for his very tasty four apple hookah. he uses the ground apple, the picked apple, the maturing apple, and of course the baby apple to give rise to his wondrously tasteful four apple blend. And let me tell you this: if you ever want an authentic hooka and great shisha taste, only possibly rivaled by other homemade shisha, look no further than The Hookah Cafe!

Hookah Bars- Hookah Cafe Part 3

So i want to explain a little but more about my hookah and shisha smoking experience while I was at the Hookah Cafe on east 60th between 1st and 2nd avenue. Everything about this place is the most authentic that it could be. These guys are the professional hookah people. They have so much information about the products they are selling and the deeply embedded culture of smoking hookas and shisha production. You know why they know so much about all of this cool hookah and shisha stuff? because they do it all themselves! i cannot stress the amzing dynamic that this hookah bar has. this place is a real hooka bar! THEY MAKE ALL OF THEIR OWN SHISHA! You cannot find quality and genuine hospitality like this anywhere. The owner, Ayman, is the most down to earth real deal hookah connoisseur that may exist on the planet. he loves the experience of smoking hookahs so much that he started making his own shisha...and it is fabulous! the way you fell when you walk into the door of this marvelous hookah bar is scintillating. Ayman, the owner of the Hookah Cafe has everything in his shop down to a science. He uses different hookahs for different flavors. he explained that if you smoke a certain flavor out a certain hooka, then that flavor or the smell or the taste ultimately gets trapped in the hookah and the flavor cannot leave no matter how hard you clean it. So in order to provide the customer with the most pure shisha flavor and experience, he uses only certain hookahs for certain flavors. The apple flavor goes in the apple hookah as to not conflate any of the flavors. in all honesty i have never seen such a tight operation of a hookah bar. The Hookah Cafe is the place to go. i have several more posts to write about this wonderful place so be ready!

Hookah Bars- Hookah Cafe part 2

So let me tell you a bit more about this bright little gem of a shisha and hookah bar on the upper east side in manhattan. The staff of the Hookah Cafe are wonderful people looking out for the well being and comfort of their customers and themselves. you can see the employees realxing and having a good time as well. this for me in terms of a relaxing atmosphere was great because even the employees are relaxing and having a good time. there were five employees and the Hookah Cafe. There were three older men and two younger men. The older men were each smoking their respective hookahs and personal favortie shisha flavors in between assisting customers and chatting with visitors. The two younger boys were in charge of most of the maintenance work with the hookahs and the customers.
So let me try to explain the situation to you. I know that this is extremely rare to find in new york city, but all of their products are homemade. Yes their shisha, tea, food and coals are all made in house and coordinated by a very special man named Ayman.
So now let me tell you a little about the hospitality that these guys provide. The tea is on the house, and it is wondeful! Their tea is a homemade blend of sage and other spices that is unrivaled anywhere else in Manhattan. They provide you with a pot of tea and a sugar pourer, to match the taste of the tea to your desires. I must have had 7 cups of tea while i was there! it was so good that i could not stop drinking it! The sweet taste of the sage tea went marvelously with our green forest hookah which was a homemade shisha blend of a few of their finest flavors. Although i would love to got into great detail about this now, i will save more for a Hookah Cafe post for tomorrow!

Hookah Bars- Hookah Cafe part 1

Let me just start out by saying that this was probably the most enjoyable shisha and hookah smoking experience that i have ever had. i had such a pleasant time at this location smoking their wonderful homemade blends of shisha tobacco out of their Israeli hookahs, interacting with the staff and learning about their operations, that i might go so far as to say that this is the be all, end all for the best shisha and hookah smoking experience in the new york city area. so lets start out with the usual logistics then we will get into the good stuff. The Hookah Cafe is located at 309 east 60th street between 1st and 2nd ave in Manhattan. when you walk into this joint the intoxicating smell of the sweet shisha smoke will sweep you off of your feet. the dim lights and funky middle eastern music set a very relaxing tone and mood for the full experience that you will get when you hang out here. the granite tile designed floors and the low seated bench style couches are a perfect fit for the resounding atmosphere of this wonderful bar. Let me just say that for this experience that i just had, it was one pleasant surprise after another, and i really only have great things so say about this place. my first pleasant surprise at this wonderful hookah bar was the no drink minimum. now this should not be a surprise, but unfortunately most of the other places we have gone to do have a drink minimum which is a total bummer. so with that out of the way we will tell you that the price for a singe hosed hookah is 20$. now you may be saying that that is above average, which it is, but i am going to take a stand for this wonderful establishment and tell you right out that it is worth every penny. in-fact, the shisha and hookah quality is so supreme and unsurpassed that the Hookah Cafe could easily get away with charging double that. i cant wait to tell you more, this place just keeps on getting better, you will just have to wait until tomorrow where i will spill the beans about this marvelous hookah bar!

Hookah Bars-terrible service

ok so maybe what i said about smoking shisha out of hookahs in the last post was a bit of an exaggeration. Luxor cafe is nice however the service is terrible. too many times i have gone there and found the hookah service to be sub par. last night for instance, we ordered a hookah and it came about fifteen minutes after we ordered it. now this is not a full restaurant or bar so i imagine that all the people do who are in the back of this place are doing is packing the occasional hookah and getting someone an occasional sam adams or bottle of water. now this to me sounds like a very remedial task which would take only a few minutes TOPS. the fact that we waited so long for a hookah was silly and their one drink minimum thing is stupid. the worst part about this place is that the hookah packs are not even packed fully and they burn out and become harsh after about 15 minutes. the shisha quality is fair but like i said they do not put enough shisha in the bowl for a hookah to smoke for a considerable amount of time. the fact is hat most of these bars use outdated products. they use very old hookah and tin foil for a coal screen. this is the 21st century and i think that people smoking shisha out of hookas might enjoy an occasional glass screen or a clean hookah that is not clogged or leaking air. that is all im saying

Hookah Bars- Review So Far

ok so here is the deal. of the hookah bars that i have reviewed thus far my favorites for smoking shisha are Karma, then Luxor Lounge, then Luxor Cafe. Karma is my favorite because of the general vibe and atmosphere. it is dark, with good music and plenty of couches that are sectioned off for privacy. the shisha is good quality and the hookah smokes for a while without getting harsh or too hot. Karma is pretty large so there is enough room to engage in conversation with a number of people and the music is not so loud that it overtakes the conversation. Then comes Luxor Lounge because it is very small and if you bring some people you can feel like you own the place. although the wait staff is not the best and the quality of the shisha and hookah smoke is not prime, the atmosphere is very private and the place is not packed very often. if it is a slow night you can even plug your own ipod in to listen to whatever tunes you want. that is very prime if you want to bring your friends out for a night of chill shisha smoking. the Luxor Cafe is nice as well because it is very similar to the Lounge, it is great for a monday night hooka session. it is not usually packed although it is very small. you can always play your own music and the quality of the shisha is ok. the hookahs do not leak and they have a variety of shisha flavors including their deluxe hooka in which the bowl head is packed into a hallowed out piece of fruit. so far my least favorite hookah bar is le souk because of its ridiculously loud music and no available seating. also the crowd there is terrible for me but maybe you like a hyped up thrashed out atmosphere to smoke your shisha. happy smoking!

Shisha Spot- Luxor Cafe

for more hookah smoking adventures in the west village try luxor cafe.  they carry a wide variety of shisha flavors in fact they have the same narghila and shisha brands  and it is right down the street from the larger luxor sister spot the luxor lounge.  this bar is located on macdougal between west fourth and west third.  it is surrounded by lots of Mediterranean restaurants and falafel stands.  the luxor lounge is not open on mondays but the luxor cafe is open for a fine shisha smoke if you have a craving for one on a monday.  the service is much better at the cafe as it is smaller and more personal.  the hookah quality is pretty much the same as the lounge but i feel that often i have a more enjoyable time smoking shisha at the cafe.  if you ever go to the luxor cafe, their apple mint deluxe hookah is great.  ask for rosa.  she is the best hookah waitress in the world.  she is very personal and attentive to the coal status and will always greet you with an offering of another hooka with her own personal recommended shisha flavors.  the only problem with this bar is that there is a one drink minimum for all customers!  This is always sort of a downer for this type of setting because in addition to the 15$ hooka i usually get a bottle of water.  now its not that i dont like the taste of bottled water, i would just rather not pay for it and drink a glass with ice.  all in all the luxor cafe is a little more quiet that the luxor lounge and the hookahs and sheesha selection are about the same.  Enjoy your smoke!

Hookah Bars- My First Time

The first time i went to a hookah bar, i was in new york city. i was visiting for a weekend with my family and i had plans to hang out with my friend sacha. when she told me what the plans were for the evening i was so shocked that i became speechless. we were going to a hookah bar to smoke some shisha! i became ecstatic and kept on asking her, "wait you mean there are public spaces and bars to smoke hookahs?" what a great idea! so we were off to the east village where we stopped in a lovely little, dimly lit bar with low couches and pretty curtains separating everyones smoking entourage. The bar was called Karma. i loved this idea of the hookah bar name from the onset. Although the creation of hookahs are decidedly a middle eastern cultural concept, and karma is a sanskrit term derived from ancient india meaning "action," i figured this was the perfect action to engage in on a friday night in nyc. this posh east village bar was a perfect fit for the type of lifestyle i wanted to pursue in nyc. the cultural concept of hookahs and the relaxing act of smoking some fine shisa was a perfect match for my relaxed personality and my desire to engage in traditions of other cultures.