Driving in a Hamptons-style overloaded car, we were cruising between Fourth of July parties when the entire backseat shrilly screamed “Breaaak!”

No, a deer or rodent hadn’t scurried under our tires.

No, a tree wasn’t tumbling onto our windshield.

Our GPS had navigated us though a South Hamptons back road that was lined with cars as far as the inebriated eye could see. Music blared at a level so high we could hear it within our own music-blaring car. Girls dressed to the nines hiked from their far parked vehicles to the mansion that was evidently hosting a raging event.

In a usually smooth bout of communication, we alerted our other three cars of friends that we’d be ‘breaking for this party.’ In a miraculous moment that only Fourth of July intoxication could provide, everyone somehow agreed and we all parked, staggering out of automobiles in the pursuit of party.

“Hey, is this Jamie’s party?” our ringleader asked a clearly bedraggled set of exiting participants. This is a name he pulled out of his ass, but it got us the desired response.

“No it’s Rob Cook’s,” they responded wearily (and helpfully.)

DING! DING! DING! DING! DING!

We now possessed the host’s name. Our friends worried as we approached the noisy house: What would we find on the other side? How would we fit in?

“Maybe it’s a wedding. We can’t crash a wedding.”

“Maybe it’s a charity event. We’ll be like the only ones not in tuxes.”

Wrong and Wrong.

We entered with ease – no checkpoints, no hired security wielding lists. The glamorous manor was wisely locked up, yet the path to the backyard remained unguarded. We pushed through the hanging open wooden fence and admired what looked like the movie set for one of those teen comedies like “She’s All That.” Sprawling grass. Kegs. Naked kids in the pool. A loner puking in a bush. The token black guy wearing a baseball hat on the deck in a DJ booth. A self-serve bar stock piled with Mountain Dew.

For some reason, it took chillin on the lawn and a few more drinks for us to fully become aware about where we’d landed. As we further analyzed the music selection, lack of décor, and scattering of late-blooming teenagers, it finally dawned on us that we’d crashed a high school party.

A young man not far enough into puberty for shaving to be mandatory approached me suspiciously and asked, “Who are you here for?”

“James,” I sung quickly, my dyslexic mind easily switching up the names I’d heard out front.

“You mean George?” he corrected.

“Yeah-huh. George,” I nodded, attempting to recover as my heel fell into a sink hole in the grass.

He walked away unconvinced.

After trying to remember how to pump a keg and high-fiving a kid in Speedos that looked like Ron Jeremy, we decided to go before serious suspicious started to arise.

Standing at the opposite fence, good-naturedly waving to the incapacitated revelers staggering out, a wiry lad, presumably George, repeated Miss Manners-style; “Thank you for coming. Thank you for coming!”

We piled back into our cars and headed to our true destination: a more tranquil event hosted by forty-year-olds, but all of our party spirits had been profoundly touched by George. Ah, to be young and utilizing your parents’ empty South Hampton villa. High school immaturity, much like a contagious disease, fevered within us for the remainder of the night.

Saturday night I dressed up as if I were going to the Oscars since a friend of mine was having a black tie themed birthday party. I’ve written before about my strong dislike of costume requirements when going out. Isn’t being a girl with a thimble size closet, pathetic salary, trying to look modelesque in one of the most fashion forward cities in the world hard enough without additional complications?!

So usually I pooh-pooh events that require I waste extra brain cells figuring out how to not look not like a moron while also incorporating a theme like 80s, Egyptian or toga. Yet when the invitation for a black tie birthday party rolled around, I squealed in delight like an over-sugared child. Practically all women have a collection of prom / bridesmaids / wedding / opera gowns which we’ve only got to cavalier around in once. Any opportunity to debut them once again should be taken advantage of.

This story would have ended swimmingly if New York nights weren’t so utterly unpredictable. My initial plans for the evening ended up being hijacked and I found myself on a completely different social trajectory than a priorly anticipated.

Translation: I never made it to my themed birthday party uptown and was dressed in black tie all night for no reason.

This fashion mistake however, has a happy ending. While I remained bitter about detouring from my initial plan, the group of friends who kidnapped me insisted we go eat dinner at La Esquina. I’d munched on late-night tacos at this joint many times, but never gotten there early enough to consume an official meal at their secret, underground, overhyped restaurant.

All the fabulous rumors about the place proved true.

Once the restaurant’s makeshift bouncer radios down and gives you the go-ahead, you snake down a dark staircase and long corridor, until walking through the kitchen. The light is blinding and pots and pans clatter. Then you enter an underground space that clearly got an M.B.A. in ambience. It’s dim, candles glow, a fireplace crackles, the walls are gray and stone but unlike many restaurants that go for this theme, La Esquina didn’t feel like a Medieval dungeon.

I know technically this place is considered “over,” but to me, the guests looked swankier than most of the people I see on your average night out. Going to a place like this isn’t really about the food, but what I consumed was delicious anyway and the service was above average. Best of all, with the seductive lighting and underground yet elegant feel, La Esquina is one of the few places we could’ve gone where despite the fact that I was dressed to sing a solo at Lincoln Center, I fit in quite perfectly. This joint seem to encapsulate what’s great about New York. While everything’s superficial, nothing is as it truly appears. The outside of La Esquina looks like a dumpy diner.

The inside is mysteriously unexpected: A place where you could see anyone, anything could happen and you feel trendy in both a ball down and ripped jeans.

Rumors are out that Serge Becker is opening La Esquina in Miami at the Mondrian Hotel and Residences on a sunny, seaside, modern terrace - a venture that could not be more different from his current restaurant. How can both these institutions even share the name La Esquina? I guess we’ll find out. In the meantime, I’m grateful places like this exist in Manhattan so that even a foolish girl accidentally wearing an evening gown doesn’t have to stick out like a sore thumb.