New York

The National

Planning an insane night of debauchery takes work. Work you can't fit into your hectic schedule of hating your job. That's why, when you're charged with pulling off a boozy gathering, you should rely on The National, an astonishing Russian supper club in Little Odessa.

While Soviet-era Russia tended to force labor and bread-envy, The National forces drinking. With a bottle of vodka included in the meal and $30 reinforcements, you might just slug enough to sample the endless and horrifying array of traditional Russian cuisine piled upon your banquet-style table.

Sure, poisoning yourself on vodka and beef tongue is a blast, but there's so much more to this Gulag of Fun:

• A prix fixe menu*: keeps costs down and stymies bill-itemizing bastards.


• The sweet layout: renders chronic complainers mute with awe -- think the ballroom of a shoddy Czarist Titanic.


• The Vegas-cum-Vladivostok stage show: delights even miserable haters, while derailing terrible conversations on relationships, careers, and family. Who can drone on about their surprise divorce while a mulleted Slav belts out "Livin' la Vida Loca"?

If you're concerned your American-style obnoxiousness will cause ex-KGB waiters to disappear you, don't be. This place is so permissive you could "theoretically" end a toast by shattering shot glasses onto your dessert tray -- and still emerge with only self-inflicted wounds, acute alcohol poisoning, and friends totally convinced that they'll never have fun again unless it's to the tune of "Zemlyanichka Yagodka".


*$50 per person on Fri and Sun, $65 on Sat.

Info's at Come2National.com

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