Intimate lounges are great for dates, but if all you can show her is your capacity for intimate lounging, she'll consider you girlish and hop a cab to her well-hung ex's. So, take her someplace with a modicum of manliness: Kava, opening Monday.

Kava's a smooth, 40-seat love cellar dug underneath the upscale Greek restaurant Parea. Downstairs, the alcoved banquettes are ideal for gratuitous fondling, while the red-tinted lighting's dimmed enough to mask your minor imperfections, but not enough to conceal a blind date's minor deformities. The shareable chow's capable of rescuing faltering conversation: inventive tapas like honey-glazed short ribs, fried zucchini w/ scallion and feta, and crispy pork w/ roasted beets and pistachio. Even if you've already eaten somewhere else, just grab dessert -- optimally the dippable Greek donut holes (though asking her if she's into "Greek Donut Holes" will result in the shrill trumpeting of a rape whistle).

All this'll put you on the road to depravity, but still leaves open the question, "Whither the manly?" The answer's Kava's ouzo selection: eight different varieties of the stuff that puts thick mats of chest hair on Greek men, and women. The potent anise spirit's available in flights, and can be paired with tapas, or, better, with Greek, Turkish, or Cypriot beer (prized by both Greeks and Turks). When she sees you deading this robust beverage, she'll know you practice a special brand of intimacy: a big swinging kind that reeks of liquorish.

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