Best Wine List -- Just Plain Cheap

There was a time not so long ago in American culinary history when wine was ordered simply by asking for the house red or white. Bastien's is a product of that period. And while settling down for a night in this time-warped Colfax fixture may not inspire your thirst for a delicate Côtes du Rhône or hundred-dollar bottle of bubbly, that's all for the best: Bastien's wouldn't have it, anyway. What it does have are house reds and whites going by the glass in the single-digit range and the occasional, surprising Aussie shiraz or South American cabernet that'll still only run you somewhere in the neighborhood of a five-spot. Though Bastien's throwback atmosphere may move you to want the sort of cocktails Truman Capote would've sucked down when he used to visit the place, just remember that man does not live on martinis and sidecars alone. Cheap wine has its place -- and Bastien's is it.