TriviaReviews.com

The Cove Trivia Mondays at 8:30
Address: 108 N 6th St, Brooklyn
Date Reviewed: 2/1/10

Pros: entertaining questions, friendly atmosphere
Cons: small event, questions too long
Overall: B+
Prizes: 1st – $25, 2nd – round of shots

On a cold Monday night, I headed to Williamsburg check out the new trivia night next door to one of my favorite Thai restaurants, Sea. Though I kept waiting for the bar to fill up, to be fair it was a cold Monday night in early February. On a quiet street in Brooklyn. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by the game.

The host, Dan “Wall Street” Wohl, was a charming guy with a penchant for long-windedness. I believe he also wrote most of the questions, which were really eclectic and entertaining. Although there was a bit of a movie and literature bias, I enjoyed the themed rounds of 10 questions each. Questions about Elliot Ness and Disney World stick out in my mind, as well as a fun round where all the answers were alcoholic drinks. (Though when it was announced that the drink named for a section of NYC was Port Authority, the groans could be heard all the way across the East River.

I can’t say too many great things about the venue, The Cove, formerly known as Hugs. Not too many bad things either, though. The inside is shaped like a giant cave, and the crowd there was friendly, but it didn’t exactly fill the place. They didn’t serve food either. But if you’re looking for a good, quirky Brooklyn trivia game, you could do much worse than The Cove. Overall a solid B+.

TriviaTryst at Gossip Wednesdays at 8:00
Address: 733 9th Ave, Midtown West
Date Reviewed: 1/13/10

Pros: good host, variety of question topics, decent food
Cons: noisy atmosphere, confusing format
Overall: A
Prizes: 1st – $50, 2nd – $25, 3rd – $10

TriviaTryst is a relatively new game in NYC and it seems they’ve grown quickly to several weekly nights. I’ve been meaning to check out one of their quizzes for a while and I finally did at Gossip in Midtown West.

I must say I was pretty impressed. TriviaTryst is similar to Stump Trivia (which I like) in that you have to turn in an answer after each question rather than just once per round. Sometimes this can be annoying, but if your team is big enough you can keep rotating gopher duty. I found the format a little confusing compared to other games – the questions come in rounds of three and you have to assign 9, 6, or 3 points to each of your answers, depending on your confidence. But I like the added aspect of not only coming up with the answer, but also deciding how sure you are about it. In addition, they have several “tryst rounds” where you confer with other teams in the bar for a combined score. At first it was awkward to get up and try to talk to other people eating dinner, but by the end of the game I was actually having a lot of fun with it.

The host, Bryce Galen, worked hard to keep the atmosphere exciting. In fact, I feel like he could have turned things down a notch (especially the music – he played too much loud hip-hop). But he was actually pretty good on the mic and even cracked a few jokes. Another good thing about the game was the wide variety of questions. There was a fashion question about Elsa Peretti, as well as questions about the Kobe earthquake, Scientology, the Memphis Grizzlies, the Palm Pixi and even Jersey Shore!

Gossip itself is pretty above average for a trivia joint, and though it wasn’t cheap, I enjoyed everything from my Pomegranate Martini to my Chicken Farfalle. I’m saving dessert for next time — I’ll definitely be back!

Check out other events presented by TriviaTryst at www.triviatryst.com.

Pete’s Candy Store Trivia Wednesdays at 7:30
Address: 709 Lorimer St, Brooklyn

Pros: creative picture rounds, history questions
Cons: unwelcoming to outsiders, limited menu

Overall: B+
Prizes: 1st – $25, 2nd – $15, 3rd – a sandwich

I went to trivia at Pete’s a while back. Upon walking in, I was immediately struck by a warm feeling, despite the neighborhood seeming less than friendly (had to walk under a highway overpass to get there from the subway stop). I found it interesting that despite the dive bar atmosphere, there were no TVs on the wall — that would never happen in Manhattan! Additionally, their food menu was limited (if you don’t like one of the five sandwiches they make, too bad).

The game was advertised for 7:30 and got underway at 7:45, hosted by three friends – Liz, Pete, and John. The format was pretty standard — 5 rounds of 10 questions each, with the following subjects: 1. advertisements (picture round), 2. general knowledge, 3. ordering historical events, 4. old celebrity gossip, and 5. epitaphs. In general the questions were well-written, if a bit obscure. The third round was particularly creative — they passed out a timeline and players had to put various historical events in the correct relative order. It was fun but frustrating as the questions were really challenging and two of the roughly 10 teams playing quickly took a wide lead over the competition.

I later found out that the two winning teams were seasoned regulars of the game and the duties of hosting the game rotated amongst them. I’m all in favor of trivia friendships, but those in the winning bunch were cliquey and didn’t make me feel particularly welcome. They admitted that several questions were repeats from past games and even laughed a bit about their edge. Given that I thought I did really, really well and still came in 4th place, I didn’t find it as funny as they did. In any case, I still have to admit that the game’s questions were well written and entertaining. As for the final verdict, I realize it may not always be the case, but the cliquey experience combined with the limited menu brings down what would otherwise be an A to an overall B+.

Shades of Green Trivia Mondays at 8:30
Address: 125 E 15th St, East Village
Date Reviewed: 11/16/09

Pros: creative questions, personable host
Cons: small crowd, nerdy vibe, terrible food
Overall: B+
Prizes: 1st – $25, 2nd – $15, 3rd – $10

Overall, trivia at Shades of Green was a good time. The advertised start time is 8:30 but things didn’t really get rolling until 9pm. The host, Tony seemed to be pretty experienced and did a great job running things. The self-written questions were entertaining and witty, though on the difficult side. The format of the game was 5 theme-based rounds of 10 questions each. Tony injected personality into his MC’ing, but it still felt a bit intense as he read through questions one after another like a moderator at a standardized test. More time to discuss as a team and converse with teammates would have been nice. Themes included: “The Year 1991,” “The Letter G,” “Faces,” among other things and questions were general knowledge with a focus on TV/movies and pop culture knowledge. Check other events presented by the same host at www.trivianyc.net.

The venue itself left something to be desired. Being generous you could call it quaint, but it’s really a tired, dingy Irish pub near Irving Place. The food was among the worst I’ve had at any trivia night — I was pleased that the menu included a decent-sounding salmon dish, but when the waiter brought out an overcooked piece of frozen fish swimming in sickly-sweet Costco teriyaki sauce I was sorely disappointed. Other highlights included stale bread on a sandwich, and acidic-tasting french onion soup. On the bright side though, they did have Miller High Lifes 2 for $5…

Overall it was a good time and the host did a good job keeping things fun for the 1 hour and 30 minutes that the game lasted. Not the most exciting trivia I’ve been to for sure, but I would recommend it if you really want to get your trivia fix on a slow Monday night… just remember to eat before you come!

Well, since I’m incredibly OCD, I decided to make a little chart of the trivia nights I know of that are currently running in the city. I also added ratings/grades, but only for the events I’ve personally attended. In rating, I considered the difficulty of the questions (my personal preference is moderate-to-hard), quality of the questions (unique or just taken from a trivia book?), and the quality of the host (how professionally and smoothly the game flowed). Here are the results! Enjoy…

Pub quizzes, trivia nights, or drunken olympics — whatever you want to call ‘em, I’m NYC’s biggest fan…  Whenever I get the chance, I love nothing more than to go get a few pints in me (okay like 4 or 5 pints at least) and match wits with the rest of New York City.  I’ll bring my coworkers and friends but sometimes I even fly solo.  Maybe I’m just an alcoholic, but when I get tired of the humdrum of the regular bar scene, I love to spice things up with a good pub quiz — many of which have excellent drink specials too.  Trivia nights in the city come in all shapes and sizes and the crowds range from jocks playing pool to the most hardcore nerds in the Village, but whatever the vibe I always come home with a good story.  Let me share some of those stories with you and help you, fellow trivia fan, to find a fun, decent game in your neighborhood.  Cheers…