Your boss is breathing down your neck about the fifteen "personal days" you took in late March. Your old and unattractive secretary couldn't collate a ham and cheese sandwich. You'd like to kill them both, but company policy frowns upon it. The last thing you want is to carry those bad office vibes into your weekend. So when Thursday afternoon* rolls around, you need to flee work and enter a magical land of potent beer and moules-frites. We recommend decompressing at Vol de Nuit, an off-the-map Belgian beer bar.

Vol de Nuit is completely sequestered from your frustrating weekly existence: an unmarked bar and courtyard, hidden in an alley where you'd expect to find a vermin war between pigeons and rats, not the city's best selection of Belgian brews. Thrillist's favorite is Delirium Tremens -- 9% alcohol by volume, slightly less than our BAC when we played Santa at the mall last Christmas.

Once you've "unwound," it's time to get dirty: savage a cauldron of garlicky mussels, then follow it with an artery-choking cone of twice-fried frites and a garlic aioli chaser. At $14, this combo is big enough to share; but so was your 5th grade birthday cake, which you also ate alone. Because you had no friends. Fatty.

Thrillist suggests bolting the office at 4pm -- no, 3pm -- so you can arrive before Vol de Nuit fills up. Stay as long as it takes to drown the pain of responsible employment and prime yourself for the rest of the weekend: two more nights of excessive consumption, then a relaxing afternoon spent perusing the Sunday Styles for the hippest new fashion trends. Or lurking in your boss's closet with a ready softball bat, praying the stink of mussels doesn't give you away.


*Thrillist believes people who go to work on Fridays are kiss-ass suckers.

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