An unassuming tourist type at an unassuming football bar tells me this: "New York restaurants are crazy! There's a club in every basement!" I nod my head. He means RdV, the bass-thumping club below Bagatelle. "No," says the unassuming tourist, "We were in some East Village pizza restaurant or something!" Jesus, it can be tough keeping up with the NYC Jones. There seems to be tons of hidden gems that try to stay away from the people like me who can write about them, Twitter about them, Facebook about them, and ultimately ruin them. Some things are worth keeping a secret, but when the party is in the basement of Coffee Shop or some media lunch spot that regularly gets off on decent press, it's easy to broadcast. Some other things will remain a mystery, until I can fully understand if it's an actual basement party or simply a couple of bus boys getting high between shifts.

As the holidays near, it's fun to roll the dice on what former hotspot will have a revival, or what invitees may finally get a glimpse of the most exclusive space by way of special event invitation. This week alone the The Bowery Hotel had a major resurgence, proving it's a party player by hosting the annual Humane Society’s Cool vs. Cruel benefit, back-to-back with tonight's Art Rocks! event. Same with the six-thousand-foot "local hang'" -- The Ainsworth -- which was ground zero for Stylecaster's Short Films Premiere Party. Sienna and Savannah Miller hosted a dinner to celebrate their spring 2010 collection at the Royalton (not exactly the downtown scene we'd imagined for them). Party palaces also revive with extreme makeovers' the closed 105 Rivington space -- a splinter off of the Rivington Hotel -- is getting a redux. It will be called CV, and it had a little show-and-tell this past Tuesday. All in all, the holiday times bring a little nightlife cheer in the form of new beginnings at old places, reminding people how awesome some of our nighttime landmarks can be.

Jeff Zalaznick transitioned his career from mergers & acquisitions to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The editor-in-chief of AlwaysHungryNY.com and founder of DinePrivate.com was once a J.P. Morgan employee before finding his passion and his business partner, famed restaurateur Joe Bastianich. The native New Yorker talks about his newest online accommodation for private dining.

Once again, the landscape of nightlife is a'changing. Sometimes, you have to stir up the water to catch a few fish, which is exactly what happened to us. East Village Monday-night favorite Le Souk lost its liquor license, forcing patrons to take their business to Le Souk Harem, but it's the neighborhood that's the real loser. Wandering aimlessly in search of something new and good on Sunday night, we found a new party at White Slab Palace. Places we'd long since wrote off somehow hit the spot if not filled the void. An object lesson on wandering outside your comfort zone.

Being a partier used to be as simple as throwing on a clean tee and getting out the door. Now, it's work. The Jane was once our last great hope; it's now all but shuttered. Just when we feel we've found our new home, a place where -- if not everyone knows our name, at least they know our label -- it loses its license, lease, or cool. If we were lazy, we'd advise you to try the Boom Boom Room every single night of the week, but if on top of the world isn't really your scene, here's what's been moving and shaking amongst the movers and shakers this week. We'll be trying them out one by one, consumed with the determination to find our Beatrice Inn incarnate.

● Boom Boom Room (Meatpacking District) - Eighteen floors above the Thigh Line, Eyeful Tower’s Boom Boom Room layers on even more sexual innuendo. Sex, too: nothing like floor to ceiling windows revealing the glittering city at your feet for getting you in the mood. Most now spot in town. (For now.)
● Jane Hotel and Ballroom (West Village) Latest smash from Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode gets all Edwardian on the WVill. Nights can run a little wild out this way, but that’s copacetic with the kinds of guests that the Jane Hotel attracts.
● Above Allen (Lower East Side) - Lush Life, indeed. Lofty Thompson LES rooftop heated up fast. Stephen Sprouse prints harken to downtown ghosts, while shmancy $15 cocktails shout out to hood’s posher present.

On Friday I declared the Boom Boom Room or whatever it ends up being called “the best room ever.” This got some mileage as Grub Street, Eater, and even the New York Post carried the story with my byline (thank you). Well, that very night, I went to a better room. This is a fast town. Friday night I was taken to the Art After Dark, the First Fridays event at the Guggenheim Museum. The Guggenheim, which opened 50 years ago, was created by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and is the best room ever. I guess it’s silly to use words like “best,” especially in nightlife where so many points of view need to be are factored in. A good friend reminded me that at one point I thought Lit was the best room ever ... until I saw Rose Bar.

A sweet tuxedo girl you see
A queen of swell society
Fond of fun as fond can be
When it's on the strict QT
I'm not too young, I'm not too old
Not too timid, not too bold
Just the kind you'd like to hold
Just the kind for sport I'm told
Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-re!

The Boom Boom Room isn't doomed at all, really -- it's just changing its name. A source tells me that "they were sort of trying out the name but decided we need a new one ... we didn't realize how many other Boom Boom Rooms were out there, one of the names André Balazs is considering is QT, as in on the QT." For those who don't know the expression it means on the quiet; it's been around since the mid 1800s and was featured in the movie LA Confidential. It's the Danny DeVito sign off of his newspaper column: "Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush."

Not long ago (just a few days ago actually), the place to be in the city was a speakeasy, a dark and dank basement bar. The kids stayed far away from "the man" -- in nightlife's case, bottle-servicing mega clubs, huge corporate-type hangs, slick bistros, or slick anything. With the recent opening of the now beloved Standard Hotel, we seem to be getting back to the well-rounded Manhattanites we once were. These days you'll find us venturing out from the West Village; some are even crossing over from the Lower East Side to experience the multifaceted Standard properties: the Boom Boom Room, The Standard Grill, and The Standard Beer Garden. Like a family caravan-ing to a Six Flags, we make the pilgrimage and usually end up staying all day at this adult playground. It works to our benefit, since we get the advantage of changing scenery without paying cab fare. As Steve Lewis asked, will most or all new nightlife construction be in the hotels? With that question in mind, it was time to revisit another of the city's package deals: the all-inclusive 60 Thompson, the understated, elegant, and trendy Soho hotel which houses the undeniably chic Kittichai, Thom Bar, and A60. Can other hotels stand up to the new Standard?

Now that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has wrapped up spewing his hilarious bile all over an empty UN general assembly, an important question remains: What's he doing tonight? You don't make the long trek to New York all the way from Iran and not sample a taste of our legendary nightlife. So what does he do? Loiter outside the Gansevoort and blend in with a crew of other blazer-sporting, open-collar-shirted loudmouths? Or does he charm his way in to a private event so he can catch those MisShapes he's been hearing so much about? Even if we don't agree with everything he says, we still want him to have fun. Because if anyone needs to loosen up, it's that guy.