We're always looking for good excuses to go out for drinks, and recently we came up with the idea that--since the weather won't stay dry for long--we should try to enjoy some patio time while we can.  Lucky for us, we found Lucky's Bar and Grill (440 NE Ave, google map it!).

But here's the deal: Laidaa's Cape Cod tasted like it was made with grape juice instead of cranberry juice.  Ethan's whiskey-and-seven was made with cola instead of lemon-lime.  And Aaron's whiskey sour wasn't at all sour.  Then Aaron's Philly cheesesteak with pasta salad arrived as a cheesesteak with fries.  Spin the wheel and see what you get!  Aaron said "It's called Lucky's 'cause you're lucky if you get what you ordered."  (P.S., the sandwich was just mediocre.)

We sat in the cozy-but-crowded back patio.  There was little light and the tables were just too big.  They were sized as though we were sitting down for Sunday brunch with seven courses rather than a few drinks.  The poverty of lighting made it almost dangerous to get up and walk around after it got dark.

Guest reviewer Aaron also said the place gets just two cigarette butts.

Cute boys: 2/5
Cute girls: 2/5

May Robin's good luck be immortalized by this review:

Ethan hates smiling:

Laida's a happy girl:

 

No video for this place--we're working on the format.  We expect to have video for the next place!!

Fresh from vacation that involved more drinking at home than out, your fearless reviewers Laida and Ethan trucked out with Nick, Leah, Shaun, and Josh to The Hutch on Holgate (4515 SE 41st Ave, map it!).  In true "we-grew-up-in-California" fashion, this required four vehicles for the six of us, but that's life, isn't it...

The Hutch on Holgate used to be Grandma's but has recently been slightly remodeled.  A fair bit of the charm (i.e., the Marrilyn Room with the purses) are lost, but it still feels quite a bit like someone's basement room.

The dinner-style food and 4-7 PM happy hour ($2.50 wells, $1.75 PBR's) is fun, but at Grandma's they'd undercharge and over-pour and if you were friendly and tipped well you could get comfortably sloshed for $10 easy, even if it wasn't happy hour.  With that sort of policy it's no wonder Grandma's closed, but still it's natural now to hold HoH up to the old standards.

The 6-foot television showing some lame sports game, the radio playing quietly behind the jukebox, the fact that only one one of the stereo channels from the jukebox played, the fact that they had one of those fancy internet juke boxes that charge a fancy fifty cents a song... all of these things contributed to an unimpressive experience.

The highlight of the evening was the simple fact that Nick had the hiccups, for which all sorts of cures were suggested.  Ethan says the low point was when the bartended copped a 'tude about their $5 minimum charge on a credit card, which in the case of a Visa card anyway is a violation of their Visa Merchant Agreement.  Ethan says he'll never go back.  He says that about a lot of places and then still goes back, but he says he really means it this time.

Cute boys: 3/5--some potential
Cute girls: 1/5--bring your own

Nick really needing to hiccup:

Laida really liked the orange lights:

Josh got a burger with fries and a pickle (not pictured):

Leah promptly asked "So... how's that pickle...?"

 

Okay, so this is the new feature and it's really dark so we're playing with the technical details, but anyway this should give you a better sense of the place than previously.  Also, no audio so don't crank the volume on your speakers or anything...
>

A nasty little pube of a man recently accused us of having stolen the idea of another site that reviews bars in Portland.  He was borderline retarded, and even dictionary.com could not guess what he meant by some of his spellings, but the basic idea was that Laida and I should feel shame every time we look at ourselves in the "moire."

We have nothing to hide: There are other places to find information about the bars in Portland.  If you go to your favorite search engine and play around with search terms like "portland" "bar" and "review" you'll probably find some.

That being said, we think we do things a bit better.  And even if we aren't any better, we have fun doing what we do.

Thanks for reading,
Ethan

One temptation we face reviewing bars is to go only to bars that we already like quite a bit.  We recently fell to this temptation, and made a trip (this time for the purpose of you, dear reader) to the Moon and Sixpence (2014 NE 42nd Ave, google it!).  In the google map we've linked, if you look at the satellite photo you can actually see the back patio were we chose to sit.

The Moon has great food.  Not such a wide selection for vegetarians, but if you like a meaty treat then you're in luck.  The traditional UK food is wonderful.  Even the sandwiches are great--they use bread that is truly tasty, unlike almost every bar we've ever been.  Lighter treats (fruit and cheese plates) or heavy gut-bombs (pasties anyone?) are both certain to make you happy.

The service is good.  The staff all know their shit, which is important for a place like the Moon which has a wide selection of beers and whiskeys.  Prenilla (sp?) is one of the best waitresses in Portland.

Well since we like this place so much, we stayed for quite some time.  We started talking about kids... Laida had mentioned the possibility of a baby sometime in the future, and Ethan began describing how he never wants to have a boy.  He said he would have to teach his son to be shameful of the things that make him a boy, and then Ethan referred to his hypothetical-son's penis as a "dirt wand," thereby combining Ethan's dislike for other males and his love of Harry Potter (who is a male, but doesn't count).

The drinks are reasonably strong and fairly priced, but on the pricey side.  The music is good, but it can get old because there's no juke box, just staff picks.  The booths inside and the back patio are all comfortable.  Fancy a game of pool?  No luck, the game at the Moon is darts, and there are some exceptional players.

We won't like, we love this fucking place.

Cute girls: 4/5 = lots!
Cute boys: 4/5 = lots!

It was light when we arrived:

It got dark:

Laida the flirt:

Ethan in the dark dark darkness:

Laida breathes fire!!!!!!!!!!!

We promise on a stack of cocktail recipe books that we weren't visiting the hemorrhoids clinic next door before we popped into the Blue Diamond (2016 NE Sandy, google map it!), although we did walk cautiously into this new territory.

Ethan was worried about his car because we saw a homeless person pissing against the back of the building, but we found a parking spot away from that gentleman.  But what a nice surprise when we walked in!  Live bluesy jazz (with no cover) when we went.  The friendly bartender even took the time to learn how to say Laida's name, saying that her own name also confused people.  Then Laida promptly forgot her name.  But it was totally nice of her!

The croud was a weird mix of friendly burnouts and friendly blue collars.  Later when we left, a guy was trying to convince the cabby that had come to pick him up to have a drink.  The cabby refused (way to go, Radiocab!).  Laida's Cape Cod was nicely strong.

The highlight of the night for Ethan were the $1.25 jello shots.  The highlight for Laida was the weird picture of the old-ish ladies playing golf.  Laida said "Life exists, and may be better, without hipsters."  Ethan said "I just hope a bum's not peeing on my car."

Cute boys: 1/5 (none)
Cute girls: 1/5 (none)

What's up with the huge windows showing the waiting room at the hemorrhoid clinic?  WE don't want to know you have hemorrhoids...

Pretty sign:

Jello shots, and accidental picture of Laida's boobs:

Ethan giggling about his slurpy jello shot:

Laida grimaces to get the whole shot down:

A well-stocked bar:

Laida LOVED this picture:

It's a special sort of challenge to find an out-of-the-way bar, because they're... well... out of the way.  We stumbled upon McPeet's Pub (4501 NE Fremont St., google map it!) after half an hour of driving around, and didn't stay longer than an hour.  Here's the scoop.

One of the nice things about sports bars is that they tend to be on the big side, but McPeet's was a little place.  We counted seating for around 25, plus maybe another 5 at the bar.  So we're not sure whether this place would count as a sports bar.  But it does count as a bar with ugly stained-glass lamps, and two big plasma TV (set to sports channels).  It also counts as a bar with hard alcohol, not a beer-only tavern as "pub" sometimes implies.

There was only street parking, but it was easy to find a spot in the evening.  There was an internet juke box, which is normally nice but the song "It's Been Awhile" (by your favorite band, "Staind") was wailing and it made us critically rethink the idea of any drunk asshole with a dollar being able to access any song they choose.  They have weekday drink specials, like Wednesdays $1.50 High Life or PBR.  (If you check our competitors you'll see that they're out of date, so read us not them!)

In summary, it was a cool-enough local bar, but no reason to go out of your way.

Laida gives this bar: 2 cigarette butts (out of 5 possible--not that good!)
Ethan gives this bar: 2 cigarette butts

Cutie pants boys: Laida rated the boys a 2 out of 5 (maybe one cute boy)
Cutie pants girls: Ethan rated the girls a 2 out of 5 (maybe one cute girl)

Oh-la-la sign!

Totally normal bar:

Laida leans while Ethan surreptitiously takes a picture of the pool-playing yuppies:

Well it might have been one of those typical Floridian voting scandals, but we voted unanimously when it came to our review of The Florida Room (435 N Killingsworth St, google map it!).  Here's the tally.

As you may know, we like bars with parking lots.  It's ironic, it's convenient, it's just plain fun.  We a little uncertain about The Florida Room's parking lot, though, because there were only two spots and we weren't clear whether it was cool to park there.  We didn't get towed, does that mean it's okay?  Who knows!  Park at your own risk.

Once inside, however, the answer was "yes."  "Yes" to cute tables and booths, set up like a diner.  "Yes" to a big back area that looked ready for some summer lounging.  "Yes" to a juke box that looked like it had been stocked by a 50-year-old punk rocker (fuck variety!).

The real cool thing at The Florida Room was the cocktail selection.  A lot of bars try to pass off their drinks as something they created, when all they did was mix in the last few drops of whatever bottle of sick liquor were almost empty.  (Some day we'll tell you the story of Ethan drinking a "Light Me On Fire and Call Me Stupid.")  Not at The Florida Room.  These drinks were obviously created by someone who wasn't drunk, but wanted to be.  That is, they were well-crafted and reasonable in their alcohol content (not stiff enough to get drunk off one, though).  Ethan had the Verde Mary, a green Bloody Mary that was a tasty alternative to the normal red sort.  (Not good enough to have all the time though, in his opinion.)  There were lots of other unique sorts of drinks on the menu, from sweet to boozey.

The Florida Room is smoke-friendly, but not smokey.  The menu had good variety: some healthy-looking sandwiches and standard bar food, but we didn't try it so we can't vouch for it.

$2.50 Mickey's Big Mouths (aka Grenades).  Need we say more?  There was also a pretty good mix of the Portland "scene."  Lesbians with bandanas, hipsters with shaggy hair, and burnouts with Macintosh laptops.

Laida gives this bar: 4 cigarette butts (out of 5, will definitely go back!)
Ethan gives this bar: 4 cigarette butts

Cute boys: 3 out of 5
Cute girls: 4 out of 5

Don't forget to check out their myspace!!

The arrow points you in:

A well-stocked bar, with fresh fruit piled high:

Heeeeeeeeey pretty pretty!

Ethan heart Laida:

"BLOND PENCILS HAVE MORE FUN"

Someone once said "If God had intended us to drink beer, He would have given us stomachs."  Anyway, that might be the idea at Bar of the Gods (4801 SE Hawthorne, google map it!).  I don't know, I didn't ask.

It was one of those lazy weekend days that we four took our odyssey - for not the first time - to Bar of the Gods, or "the B.O.G."  The Bog can be quite busy on prime nights, loud and smokey, and filled with hipsters and people beyond categorization.  But go on a Sunday and you have a good chance of having the run of the place.  If there are no tables inside, check the back patio.  Or check there first on a nice night!

Only street parking is available (apparently there's this mis-match between drinking and driving), and it's East-Hawthorne street parking at that, so be prepared.

As we sat at our too-small table, we wondered just what the "Flemish Beef Stew" on special was.  Laida and our guest reviewers Nick and Jefe wondered what makes a stew Flemish, and Ethan just wondered where the Flemland is.  But in addition to some typical bar food, they have Greek or mediteranian dishes that have received good reviews all-round.

There is no juke box that we're aware of, and the music can be... sketchy.  But not worth wearing ear muffs.

Laida reports that the "Goddesses" room always smells like rose petals.  Ethan, Nick, and Jefe report that the "Gods" room smells like pee.

$1 PBR's and $2.50 wells during happy hour!

Ethan gives this bar: 2 cigarettes (out of five)
Laida gives this bar: 4 cigarette butts
Jefe gives this bar:  2 cigarette butts
Nick gives this bar: 4 cigarette butts

Cute girls: a few
Cute boys: a few

Check out the Bar of the Gods on myspace!!

Cute bartender:

Guest reviewers Nick and Jefe.  Jefe says "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Laida, SO excited:

Pay no attention to Ethan's girly hand posture:

The word "nest" has been defined as "A place or environment that fosters rapid growth or development, especially of something undesirable." But in our opinion, The Nest (1801 NE Alberta, google map it!) is a great place to get a drink.

Laida likes The Nest partially just because it's so freaking close to her place, but we could both agree that it was clean, smoke-friendly but not smokey, and had pretty colored lights. $1 PBR's during the 3-7 PM happy hour ($2.50 wells, $3 microbrews) aren't bad either, and Ethan almost creamed his shorts when he found Belle + Sebastian's The Life Pursuit on the juke box.

There seemed to be some seating outside that might be great during the summer, but the weather wasn't compatible when we dropped by. One pool table, and two pin-ball machines offer some entertainment if your friends are boring. Only street parking, boo! Ethan got chips and salsa and was very disappionted at the ketchup-y salsa.

Ethan gives this bar: 4 cigarette butts (out of five!)
Laida gives this bar: 4 cigarette butts

Cute girls: A few
Cute boys: A few

Don't forget to check out their myspace page for the newest info!

Laida strikes a pose outside:


Woody Woodpecker on movie night (before the actual movie):


Ethan bobs his head to "White Collar Boy" by Belle + Sebastian:

One of the most haunting stories I heard as a child, called "The Monkey's Paw," was about how some greedy people whose wishes get perversely fulfilled.  The moral of the story was something about how monkeys aren't trustworthy, and how they'll try to find a loophole to keep you from getting the things that you deserve.  Keep this in mind when you enter The Wishing Well (8800 N Lombard St, google map it!).

So you wish for cheap, reasonably stiff drinks?  Watch out, because your wish might be perversely fulfilled when that $3.00 whiskey soda or $3.25 brandy on the rocks cost you twice as much in over-the-counter pain meds and Pepto Bismal the next day.  So you want a crowd full of hot ladies?  You might want to specify that they're figuratively hot, not sweaty despite the cool night.

And here's the best example of a wish not coming out quite the way you planned… let's say you wish to review a bar for some little web thing you run.  Well, you might want to be careful how much you drink while you're there, or you might take notes that say things like "Lone Indian w/ a peace pipe and a couple teeth.  Keen spectator.  Right on crouton."

The drinks were cheap, the bartender was friendly once he saw that we were tipping, and even though nobody's quite sure how they got home we all still had our underwear on when we got there.

Laida:  3 cigarette butts (out of 5)

Ethan:  3 cigarette butts

Nick:  3 cigarette butts

Aaron:  2 cigarette butts

By the end of the night, this was the only picture that wasn't just a blur:

= good times!