These two don't seem to mind getting caught in the act, but we'd rather keep our cheating under wraps. Cast your vote for the best place in the city to carry on a secret affair.

If your New Year's resolution involved, say, plans to cheat on your spouse, or land yourself a sugar daddy, or even spend as little money as possible on your date, then you can breathe easy. We're in a post-holiday slump, too, which is why we're shaking things up with a brand-new series of reader polls, Best of Citysearch: Dating and Mating. And while the readers still get to vote for the winners, this time we've taken the liberty of choosing all the contenders.

Look, it's not that we don't trust you to nominate the best spots in the city for categories like Golddigger's Goldmine, Sex-Inducing View, Hookup Spot, Morning-After Brunch and Spot for a Secret Affair. It's just that we trust ourselves more. And this way we can avoid the problem of bars and restaurants popping up in categories where they don't belong, just because some dude nominates a spot he happens to own like in every category, whether or not it's really appropriate.

You can vote once per day in every category, and you can voice your approval or disapproval with the locations we nominated, the new format of these polls, or with life in general by leaving a comment here on the booze blog or sending an email.

Above: The ground floor at Tailor, our pick for best new bar of '07. The PR reps insist it's a restaurant, and they're none too pleased to find it in the best bars category--so much so that they ignored my request for a photo of the basement lounge!

Unlike the Best of Citysearch polls--in which the readers vote for the winners, often much to our dismay--the year-end lists are editor-selected. There are several reasons why compiling this year's roundup of the 10 best new bars was a relatively painstaking task. One is that a few weeks ago I made a plea for help which was largely ignored (thanks a lot, jerks!); another is that there's a significant gray area when it comes to differentiating bars from restaurants in the age of the after-dinner booze-fest. Many new spots feature fancy cuisine prepared by a Top Chef by day, and classy cocktails sipped by beautiful people by night. Well, rather than fight it out with our restaurants editor (and Bottomless Dish blogger), I threw caution to the wind and selected Tailor--Sam Mason's Broome Street resto/lounge, as famous for its peanut butter foie gras as its alcohol-based concoctions--as the No. 1 best new bar of 2007.

Also on the list? The Randolph, the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Gray Kunz's new small plates hot spot, Grayz (which was reviewed by the New York Times' venerable Frank Bruni as a restaurant, and by us as a bar--partially because when I went there for "dinner," I left drunk and still hungry, though the food was excellent) and many (OK, six) more. Click through for the complete list of the top 10 bars of '07. Input is welcome, but unless you heeded my call to contribute your two cents, don't blame me if your favorite new spot didn't make the cut.

More ...
New & Notable Nightlife
Top 10 Restaurants of '07

Above: This dude LOVES the scene at Pacha (Photo by Peter Drier)

Earlier this fall, Citysearch readers had the opportunity to vote for the Best of Citysearch Nightlife awards in more than 25 categories. While the editors get to pick one winner per category, the other 10 on the list are solely determined by the site's users. Knowing that users often have a thing or two to teach stuck-in-their-ways editors, I decided to investigate the best Singles Scene category, in which the audience voted for Pacha, BLVD and People in first, second and third place respectively. Regardless of their other virtues, these spots wouldn't make it to the top of my list of singles bars, and yet the readers had spoken--these were their favorites. My undercover mission: To take single girlfriends out to investigate these bars, and evaluate the singles scenes for myself. Read on for the play-by-play account of what happens when some hot single chicks in their 20s go to a bar and wait for the vultures to strike.

(I realize some of you may be wondering what we look like--after all, if we're a couple of desperate, snaggle-toothed hoochies, then perhaps that would explain it if we found that singles looking for some action should consider going elsewhere. Suffice it to say that each of us can hold our own when it comes to the opposite sex.)

First up was People (above), voted third best singles bar in our poll. This was my first time at People, and based on my experience with bars on Friday night, I can say that nothing of any interest takes place at this bar, and getting lucky is perhaps the least likely of all. We arrived during prime-time drinking hours--around 12am, and the place was almost empty. What few people were there were primarily in co-ed groups or couples, which is great for cohabitators, bad for singles. We couldn't even engage the bartender in conversation, and no one tried to talk to us, let alone hit on us. We held out until 1:30am, when we could take it no longer, and after stopping off The Sixth Ward for a few more drinks, we called it a night. 

With one bar down and two to go, on Saturday night we decided to start on the Bowery at BLVD and work our way up. That dream turned out to be short-lived, when we arrived there only to discover that BLVD was closed for a private party. But alas, drinkers can't be planners, so we scrapped bar No. 2 and decided to make moves to West 46th Street club Pacha, the audience-voted winner for Singles Scene (as well as best See and Be Scene Bar and Dance Club).

Pacha is run like a well-oiled machine. From the minute you step out of a taxi, you'll be told exactly where to stand, where to line-up for the body-cavity search, which staircase to take, and so on. As far as I could tell, Pacha appeals to three main groups of people: Euros, bridge and tunnelers who come to dance, and bridge and tunnelers who come to pick up women with their VIP credentials (where by "credentials" I mean "bottles of Grey Goose"). And, we learned, they all like women with skin.

Above: At Pacha, the frigid November weather has no effect on this girl, who wore a shoelace instead of a shirt

After three or four rounds of drinks and no potential suitors, we took a cue from a girl on the dance floor (above), and decided it was time to break out the heavy artillery: we removed our extra layers of clothing. Low and behold, within a split-second of baring some flesh, bachelor No. 1 had miraculously appeared. He introduced himself as Paul--"from Staten Island, unfortunately"--and wore a white baseball cap covered with the word "Firenze" in black lettering. (We later learned that Paul had never actually been to Florence, but his friend had gone to Italy and brought back this lovely souvenir.) According to Paul, Pacha is "Mostly B&T. People pretty much come here for the DJs and the dancing.” He invited us to join him on the mezzanine where he had an open tab, but we declined.

We were soon trapped in a conversation with two men whose names were Orlando and Ivan (or was it Igor?). During my unfortunate chat with Orlando, he informed me that my "beauty was international" and asked if I'd ever heard of his native Albania. Only moderately traumatized, we excused ourselves from that conversation and returned to the bar where we were approached once more, this time by a guy who valiantly tried to chat us up with lines like "Come here often?" We chugged what remained of our drinks before cabbing it back downtown to familiar territory.

So while Pacha is good for meeting men, it’s just not good for meeting men I’d ever like to take home. I guess in the end, we're all true to our stereotypes, whatever they may be--so it's a good thing I'm OK with being the judgmental New York City native who would rather be single than hang with Orlando, Igor and the rest of the gang in midtown.

BEST BARTENDERS...
Above: Duff's, audience winner
Below: Death & Co, editorial winner

Although I won't start pushing it on the Citysearch bars & clubs page until tomorrow, as of today the Best of Citysearch Nightlife '07 winners are officially online. Truth be told, I disagree with the readers who voted for this and this (I mean, really? Don't you people ever tire of voting for that place??), but do note that in addition to the 27 winners selected by the audience, 27 were also selected by the editorial department (one in each category). And despite that I gave you all ample warning last month and insisted that I didn't want to hear complaints from apathetic bystanders once the winners were locked in, I've had a change of heart. By all means, feel free to use the comment space here to bemoan and bitch, or conversely, to express your wholehearted satisfaction with this year's results.

(Photo of Duff's courtesy of nycpb; photo of Death & Co. courtesy of Eater)

If you are one of my friends who attended last weekend's birthday fete at Madame X (or if you've ever been to Madame X), please answer the following question: Would you describe it as the best lounge in New York City? What's that you say? If it's no, then it's your responsibility to go vote for something else, because right now Madame X holds the No. 1 spot for New York's best lounge, and voting ends tomorrow (Wednesday night). Time is running out for you to vote in (or out) the current front-runners for New York's best bars and clubs in more than 25 categories; if you don't, you'll be forfeiting your right to complain about the results.

As you may know, voting is currently underway for the Best of Citysearch Nightlife, which means drinkers, clubbers, and all-around partiers have the opportunity to choose their picks for the best bars and clubs in New York. With dozens of bars (and more every day) nominated in each category--including Best Bar to See and Be Seen, Best Dive Bar, Best College Bar, Best Lounge--I started wondering what a list of Best Bar, Period would look like. Would it even be possible for any socially active New Yorker to say that one bar, above all the rest, is the best in the city? Well, that's the challenge: Post a comment here with your picks for the best bar in New York ... or at the very least, tell us your all-around favorite bar at the moment. Then go there and drink lethal amounts of booze. Just kidding. Sort of.