Bar Review - IMAXimum impact at Fernbank
Sometimes, size counts.
When it comes time to impress a special lady with things like cash flow, precious stones or, um, well, thinking further along the lines of "precious stones," let's just say sometimes size counts. And that counts for date movies as well. So for those with big appetites for romance — and reasonably large budgets — Fernbank Museum offers its weekly Martinis & IMAX.
Every Friday, beginning at 6:30 p.m., Fernbank fills its atrium with soft jazz and softer light, offering a la carte dining, drinks and IMAX ... for a price. The $10 entrance (free to museum members) for one of the 45-minute-or-so five-story-tall-or-so screenings — which run promptly at 7, 8, 9 and 10 p.m. — gains you unrestricted unlimited access to the atrium and balcony (available without the screening for $5). But if you're there for the movies, you'd best hold to your reservation as tightly as you would that of any of the city's finest dining establishment. The seats in the IMAX theater fill immediately (yes, you can take your drink in), and acting too casually means missing the chance to feast your eyes, swooning over the sweeping images of Australia or Mount Kilimanjaro, just two of several regularly changing features.
But even if you don't come for, or make it to, the IMAX, there's plenty of other feasting to do. For those coming straight from previous engagements (like work), everything from $15 foie gras and caviar appetizers to $17-$22 entrees of chicken, duck, salmon, lobster and filet mignon to $25 gourmet pizza to $5 desserts and coffee is served beneath twinkling stars, at the feet of towering dinosaurs.
Even if you've already eaten, hopefully you left room to imbibe. While there's beer ($4) and a full bar, sweeten the evening, literally, for your date with one of the overflowing $7 Ketel One martinis: chocolate, apple, blue Curacao and pineapple (the "Starry Night"), Cosmopolitans, margarita (in a martini glass) and more.
For those whose tastes lean away from refined sugars and toward refined spirits, the dirty martinis should not be missed, tossed with just a touch of vermouth, and served as they should be, with two olives — one for you, one for her. Once you've shown your date what good taste you have by taking her to Martinis & IMAX, sharing olives shouldn't be the only time she'll pucker up for you.
Before you take her to Buckhead and blow your chances by trying to get her dancing on the bar, take her to Martinis & IMAX, show a little class and blow her mind. Chances are, Buckhead or no, you'll get that second date. Size it up.
Martinis & IMAX takes place Friday evenings at the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, 767 Clifton Road. 404-929-6400. www.fernbank.edu/museum. ??