Happy Halloween Weekend!

We've been so busy with all our new happy hour reviews that we didn’t have time to do a roundup of the Halloween drink specials taking place in the city of Angels. The horror! However, we have heard rumblings of drink specials, Halloween parties, & costume contests at Bodega Wine Bar, Rush Street, Rocco’s Tavern, & more.

If you’re not already, be sure to follow us on twitter as we retweet deals and other drunken debauchery. Late night tweets is the new drunk dial.

Have a safe but oh so spooktactular Halloween!

Jennie & Jessica

Tom Bergin’s

840 S Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 936-7151
www.tombergins.com

Parking: $3.50 valet (only available some days), metered street parking

Monday-Friday, 4-7pm & Saturday-Sunday, 11:30am-7pm; $4.75 well drinks, $4 beers on tap, “award-winning Camelot wines,” and their famous Irish Coffee; Select food items from $3.25-$4.95


It was a dark & stormy night...

I’ve been wanting to check out Tom Bergin’s for some time now. Or maybe it’s Molly Malone’s. Both are Irish bars that sit on Fairfax, north of Little Ethiopia. In fact, I had been planning to visit Little Ethiopia for dinner on a misty Friday night, but traffic looked so bad as I headed south on Fairfax that I literally made a U-Turn in the middle of the street and parked right in front of Tom Bergin’s. Unfortunately, the first meter was broken (aren’t they always?!), but found another soon after.

Walking into Tom Bergin’s feels like walking into an East Coast bar – not that I’ve been to that many of those, for JG & I are Midwestern girls :). But I could easily see a dark sports bar like this, papered in shamrocks with the names of regular bar visitors (including, according to wikipedia, Tommy Lasorda & Kiefer Sutherland), quite at home in a Boston location.



When we arrived around 6:15, the bar was already hoppin’, though not so full that we didn’t have our choice of seats at the bar, where Happy Hour is served. And these bar seats were a little weird, mini-bench seats that can sit 2 people, tethered to the ground. We picked a spot by our pal, JC, who just happened to also pop in Tom Bergin’s before he attended the same movie we were going to see at LACMA.

While JC enjoyed the Astro’s game on one of the five flat-screens, Booze & I enjoyed a couple Black & Tans (for her) and Smoothies/Black Velvet’s (cider & Guiness – for me). We were happy to note that each beer was Happy Hour priced with the other regular tap beers at $4/drink. The bartenders were cute & fit & Irish and only worked the bar, so they sent over a non-nonsense waitress who promptly delivered our $4.95 Wee Burgers with fries (for Booze) and mozzarella & zucchini sticks and ranch & marinara dipping sauces for $3.95. The mozzarella sticks were all right, but zucchini sticks were kinda like really-good awesome.



What I like about Tom Bergin’s is the number of patrons, specifically the healthy young adult male population. Although most were watching sports, I don’t think it’d be unfathomable to interrupt a nice-looking guy’s viewing to strike up a light conversation or ask for the ketchup while doing a “bend & snap.”

I also like that the happy hour runs from 4-7 on Monday-Friday AND also from 11:30am-7pm on Saturday & Sunday. I don’t quite understand why more bars don’t run weekend happy hours, maybe Tom Bergin’s can afford to because it has such a healthy client base – judging by the shamrocks all over the walls & ceiling!


JB & the Ginger's!

--JB

Rating: 5 martinis

8 oz. Burger Bar - CLOSED

Update: As of May 2011, 8oz. Burger Bar is now closed.

7661 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90046
323.852.0008 www.8OZBURGERBARLOSANGELES.com twitter.com/8ozburgerbar

Parking: Metered Street Parking
Monday-Friday, 4-7pm and Monday-Thursday, 10pm-close - $4 Beers, Wines, & Cocktails, plus $4 “small bites” that for some odd reason do not include burgers. Happy Hour at the bar only.

Call me crazy, but if a restaurant has “burger” in its title, shouldn’t the happy hour include, well, burgers?

Apparently, not at 8 oz. Burger Bar.

Between JB & I, we have both been to plenty of happy hours that include burgers on their happy hour menu, or at the very least, sliders. 8 oz. Burger Bar does not. For $4, the “small bites” menu includes mini corn dogs, buffalo drumettes, hummus & pita, deviled eggs, and fried olives. If you want a burger, you need to double your happy hour money and order one for $8 or $10. Since the burgers do not come with sides, happy hour is a good time to order one since you can order a $4 side ($5-8 not during happy hour) to go with it.
Since this happy hour was not about burgers, neither was I, so I stuck to the happy hour menu. I ordered up the blackberry collins cocktail ($4), which was served in a large glass and full with just the right amount of liquor. For the next rounds, my girlfriends & I went with glasses of sauvignon blanc ($4). None of us were in the mood for beer,

but if you want to try out a beer, the friendly bartenders will give samples. The price & sizes of the drinks is exactly like happy hour should be done. The hot bartender doesn’t hurt either.

After taking down the big blackberry collins, I ordered the mini corn dogs that were anything but. For $4, you get 3 corn dogs that are shorter than regular corn dogs, but wider – that’s the only way to get into the description without getting too phallic. Explaining to the neighboring Italians what exactly a corn dog is, also proved to be a challenge. It’s always nice to have an old American treat, but the corn of the corn dog was too damn salty. I was afraid that my feet were going to swell and bust out of my Jeffrey Campbell shoes.

Saltiness aside, 8 oz. proved to be a pretty happening happy hour. Happy Hour only takes place at the bar, but it doesn’t stop people from hanging out at the bar before grabbing a table for dinner. We ran into my hottie eye doctor and his equally hot friends. We also kinda sorta met Luke Perry, who was too busy watching the game for me to interrupt and declare my love, but we did chat up his male friend Sandy that we all know we know from somewhere but my imdb detective skills have turned up nothing.

I’d definitely return for this Melrose Ave. happy hour and maybe next time spring for a burger.

-JG
Rating: 4 Martinis

Chakra

151 S. Doheny 
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
(310) 246-3999
www.chakracuisine.com

Parking: Complimentary valet parking (no, really!! Just remember you should still tip)

Monday-Friday, 4-7pm, $3 beers, discounted Indian beers, $5 house wines & well drinks, $7 martinis, and $7 appetizer selection

Chakra is a cool small-ish Beverly Hills restaurant with a nice patio and bar that feels like what might happen if a W Hotel had an on-site Indian restaurant. Clean, dark lighting, ambient Indian music (cue the music on their website), and a couple flat-screens showing the ABC Nightly News and a baseball game. Although I’m not out much in the 90210, I get the sense that a lot of the restaurants have this feel of a W Hotel extension! But it was this particular spot I ended up at after looking for a Beverly Hills Happy Hour to hit before a screening at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theatre on Wilshire.


And I was not disappointed. When I arrived at 6:15pm on a Thursday, I was the only Happy Hour patron as I awaited a poor friend who got stuck in a hellish 1.5+ hour commute from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills (just another LA Story, right?). As such, the staff took good care of me – the bartender was hard at work mixing drinks for waiters serving people on the patio and in the restaurant, but she still took the time to walk me through the Happy Hour drinks and appetizers.

I ordered a couple glasses of the house chardonnay ($5/glass during Happy Hour) and a $7 samosa, but she kindly explained they’d be bringing out a little complimentary sampler if I wanted to hold off. With her guidance, I instead ordered the $7 Gobi-Manchurian, a unique and awesome Indo-Chinese cauliflower dish in which the cauliflower is lightly battered and fried and then covered in a spicy red tomato sauce. Since going vegetarian, I’ve really missed Panda Express’ orange chicken – sad I know – and this cauliflower dish was one of the closest things in texture that I’ve found in that time. Hooray for Chakra!


I also enjoyed the delicious sampler that had been sent my way – papadum (lentil) chips served with mint & tamarind chutneys, a tasty (though mouth burning) fried mushroom something or other and a baby samosa.

By the time my pal & I left around 7:15, the scene had picked up and even more resembled a W Hotel bar with well-heeled dudes & dudettes hanging out around the bar. Cool, man, cool. Also a final note: seeing as this spot seems to fit right in Beverly Hills, I would be interested in visiting or hearing about the restaurant’s Irvine location – does it have the same vibe or is it a little more collegiate?
--JB

Rating: 4 Martinis

The Upper West

3321 Pico Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90403
310.586.1111www.theupperwest.com
twitter.com/theupperwest

Parking: Metered street parking, free after 6pm. $6 valet starting at 6pm.
Monday nights, 5-10pm, Tuesday - Friday, 5-7pm, $3 beers, $4 wines, & $6 cocktails, and bar food from $4-8

Forgive me, Jesus in LA, for I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last happy hour.

It’s not that I’ve been intentionally not going to happy hour. It’s just that I have been in

production madness/very much in need of happy hour. That never happens and that won’t be happening again. I’m back.

For my first days of returning to my normal self, my friend, June, suggested lunch or happy hour. I chose the latter. I even chose a west side happy hour, closer to her office, so that we could start as soon as she got out of work and that’s how I ended up at The Upper West, my first happy hour back on the circuit. I been to The Upper West for dinner once before and was bummed that I had missed their happy hour so it was fresh on my mind as far as Santa Monica happy hours go.

It turns out there’s not much of a happy hour scene. Most people arrive later for a full meal,

which is the smarter choice since the bar bites aren’t much of a deal. As we were meeting up at dinnertime, we quickly got our grub on. I ordered two delicious ahi tuna tacos ($4 a la cart),which isn’t much of a deal at all due to their tiny size. Plus on the regular menu, you get 3 tacos for $12. You see what they’re doing here? Changing the wording does not make a happy hour deal if the prices are the same. Just saying.

June ordered the curried wings, which I recommend whether or not you’re a curry fan. However, June wasn’t crazy about the $8 price. Like the ahi tuna tacos, I think $2 could have been shaved off the happy hour price. The only price I could get on board with was the lamb nacho bites for $7 and perfect for sharing. As promised by the bartender, the nacho bites are more like mini tostados so every single chip is covered with goodness, or as he said “You won’t get any naked chips. Yes, I said naked.”

Now, you all know I didn’t go to happy hour just to stuff my face; we did cocktails, too! I ordered the peach caipirinha ($6), made with sagatiba cachaca, muddled with limes, and shaken peach nectar. Given the fancy digs of the place and wording of the drink descriptions, I expected to see fresh ingredients, not a shaken can of Kern’s peach nectar. The drink was good nonetheless. June opted for the ginger cosmo ($6), which she loved and made sure to share that with the bartender, but we both switched to the house white wine ($4) for our next and final round.

As for the crowd, The Upper West is not a place I would return to for happy hour. The acoustics in there are terrible as the crowd grows, especially when there are kids thrown into the mix. The first time I went there, there was a party with two screaming kids, one that ran around. This time - just babies. I love kids, I really do and I hope to have some of my own. Being from the Midwest, almost all of my friends have 2+ kids that I have helped wrangle from time to time, but they would never take their kids or allow them to run around a nice looking place like The Upper West. Target? Yes. The Upper West? No. Kudos for being kid friendly, but it just might not be everyone’s thing when enjoying an after work cocktail.

Perhaps with the family scene and the pricing, The Upper West is catering to the established career, family man and woman, not that crazed career singles, looking to mingle. After all, there is a happy hour for everyone and JB & I are here to find them.

-JG
Rating: 3 Martinis

Barragan’s

1538 W. Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles CA 90026
Phone: (213) 250-4256
www.barragansrestaurants.com

Parking: Metered street parking along Sunset Blvd.

M-F, 4-7:30pm (I think!), $1 off Margaritas, $8 pitcher of Bud Light (I think!), complimentary food buffet. Also, nightly specials including Wednesday’s $2.50 Margarita Night.

What is not to love about a three-station bar/restaurant where everybody knows your name? Well, they didn’t know my name or that of my friend Nicole’s because sadly, we’re not regulars, but you get what I’m saying, Barragan’s is kinda like your regular old “Cheers” bar with a Mexican twist. This Barragan’s location had come up in several Happy Hour searches and had also come recommended from a new Happy Hour friend from The York. So, when Nicole & I were looking for a Happy Hour in Echo Park to check out before a show at the nearby Echoplex, we were stoked to check out this kitschy spot.

As for the three stations – let me explain. When you first walk into Barragan’s, you enter into what looks like a family dining area and it’s pretty big. You go further back and hit the bar area, which is sort of reminiscent of a small hotel sports bar in the Midwest – complete with a complimentary appetizer buffet and a Friday night soundtrack that alternates between (mostly Spanish) karaoke and tunes like Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” and K.D. Lang’s “Constant Craving.” Finally, there’s an upstairs area that may or may not be used for concerts and dancing – it’s open for business at 8pm and apparently there are $3.50 margaritas to be found there.


Station #1 (like a family style-restaurant), detail from Station #2 (bar area)

We were a bit confused by the set-up at first; it was 7:40pm when we arrived, so we had missed Happy Hour and were too early for the cheap drinks upstairs. After looking like lost children for several minutes, a kindly bartender took pity on us and told us we could still have the Happy Hour price drinks ($1 off margaritas). Her pity must have extended to her pour because our margaritas – on the rocks with salt, but of course – were ridiculously good.

We also enjoyed the fun Midwest Hotel Happy Hour style buffet, which featured tortilla chips, salsa, nacho cheese, taquitos, tiny little chicken wings, and celery & carrots with ranch dressing. The stadium-style nacho cheese was my favorite – though I was very happy with the healthy carrot & celery selection! They cleared the spread away pretty soon after Happy Hour was over, so we then shared an order of Nachos “Barragan” for $8.95. Now, I didn’t anticipate eating that much of them so I didn’t mind that they came with chorizo as I thought I could just scrape it off. However, I now believe the chorizo was blended into the beans – so my vegetarian scraping method became an exercise in restraint and avoidance :).

After the strong first drink, I had to go with a soda pop for my second since I was driving and to my delight, my Diet Coke with grenadine came back with 8 cherries in the glass. You gotta love that attention to detail!

Also detailed are the Happy Hour and nightly specials, of which I’ve received conflicting reports. One call to Barragan’s told me that Happy Hour runs from 3:30-7pm, another told me that it’s from 4-7:30pm – I believe it to be the latter. The Happy Hour features $1 off margaritas ($5.50 instead of $6.50), the complimentary appetizer spread, and possibly an $8 pitcher of the Bud Light. Not so confusing are their nightly specials, of which the most popular is Wednesday night – known for its $2.50 margaritas ($3.50 for flavored margaritas).

All-in-all, Barragan’s is not a fancy place to take anyone, but it’s fun & home-y. And hey, I bet if you come often enough, they’ll learn your name (and your favorite drink!).


-- JB

Rating: 3.5 Martinis (I had a fun time, but am still a little confused!)

Bar Pintxo

109 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
(310) 458-2012www.barpintxo.com
twitter.com/BarPintxo

Parking: Nearby SaMo lots, metered street parking

Daily – 4-6:30pm, Wednesday-Saturday – 10pm – Midnight

Drinks: $4 glasses of Sangria and their red & white wine, $1.50 for their half-pint of Stella, $6 for Fino Sherry

Food: 6 Pintxos (see below :) for $6, $6 select tapas items

The final stop on AP’s & JB’s Monday - Santa Monica - Happy Hour Tour was Bar Pintxo (pronounced Pincho), which sat just across the street from our 2nd stop, Pourtal, and near several other Happy Hours that we wish we had time to check out, BOA and Ye Olde King’s Head. We decided on Bar Pintxo cos it just looked kind of cute – it’s this little Spanish tapas restaurant that’s set up like a sushi place with the chefs in the middle and the food ingredients and menu items decorating the counter (including a ham-hock!). There’s a nice patio and seating around the chef station as well as more group oriented seating behind that.

Truth-telling, after Pintxo, I had to get AP to LAX and then drive back to Hollywood Hills West, so I didn’t want to chance having another liquor drink. So, while AP enjoyed a couple $4 glasses of the delightful white Sangria, I had a couple diet cokes (cans, not fountain soda, fyi).

And it was the food we were really excited about anyhow – though we wish we’d left a little more room in our stomachs after having tried shrimp & fries at the Huntley’s Penthouse and nuts & hummus at Pourtal. It didn’t really matter though as we still ordered their namesake pintxos – delicious little food items served on top of mini-bread slices, kinda like bruschetta to us Americano rubes. During Happy Hour, you get your choice of 6 pintxo’s for $6. AP & I very much enjoyed a round topped with Fresh Tomato & Garlic, the Crimini Mushroom with Mushroom Mousse and Manchego Cheese, and the Huevos Rellenos con Vinegreta Vasca (eggs w/ peppers & something else?). I also spied an outside table’s delicious selection and ordered the same Patatas Bravas (crispy potatoes w/ spicy tomato sauce, aioli and chives) and my nosiness paid off – the potatoes were so good – slightly crispy with this nice tinge of spicy tomato. Bravo Bravas!

I love this kind of Happy Hour, somewhere you can make a real meal out of the food options – definitely somewhere to take a date when you want to show off, but not spend much! And it’s just as good for friends or if you’re flying solo, just like the scene at Pourtal. The waitresses were all totally friendly as were the chefs behind the counter.

All in all, a terrific little Happy Hour to be enjoyed in conjunction with an ocean-front Santa Monica Blvd. Happy Hour Tour or on its own!

--JB

Rating: 5 Martinis

Pourtal

104 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401www.pourtal.com
twitter.com/pourtal

Parking: Nearby SaMo lots, metered street parking

Monday-Friday, Monday – all night, Tuesday-Friday – 4-7pm, $5 select wines by the glass, $5 select appetizers

The next stop on AP’s & JB’s Monday - Santa Monica - Happy Hour Tour was Pourtal in Santa Monica, where Happy Hour goes all night Monday, and runs from 4-7pm Tuesday-Friday. The Monday that we happened to visit Pourtal was one of the hottest days on record in Los Angeles, luckily – Pourtal’s one block distance from the ocean kept us cool for our happy hour.

JG & I have been long overdue to visit Pourtal's Happy Hour since they a) their Happy Hour had come recommended from more than a few friends, b) Pourtal always show us Follow Friday love on Twitter, and c) well, we just love wine! We can see why our pallies wanted us to hit this spot up - Pourtal has a shit ton of wine and a fun way of sharing it. First off, during Happy Hour, they offer 4 selections of $5 wines by the glass. And the other cool wino thing is that they have a couple automated wine flights. Basically, you can buy a wine-debit card, which you then use to purchase individual tastings from automated wine-pouring machines. Now, for the tastings, they put together a flight of wines that go nicely together – the samples when we visited included “California Old & Rare,” “Bored to Death Blind Tasting” (inspired by the HBO show), “Genuwine Worldly Whites” and “Genuwine Worldly Reds” and the tastes cost anywhere from $1.50 to $6.50/taste. Great way to sample $115 bottles of wine! Now, during Happy Hour – Pourtal donates 15% of the tasting purchases to a different non-profit organization every two weeks. AP & I skipped on the tastings this time, but very much enjoyed our glasses of the $5 Gran Feudo Rosado on happy hour special.


Their Happy Hour also offers $5 appetizers including selections like bar nuts, hummus & pita, burrata, tater tots. AP & I shared the delicious $5 bar nuts – a mixture of almonds, cashews, walnuts, some sort of little seeds – tossed with cayenne, herb butter, brown sugar, and a hint of vanilla. The nuts were AWESOME! We met a new friend who worked at BOA across the street (where there’s also a Monday-Friday 5-7 Happy Hour we gotta check out!); she comes to Pourtal for their lamb sliders and she kindly shared her $5 Pita & Hummus, which was totally enough for the three of us to enjoy along with our other selections.


My favorite thing about Pourtal – outside of the cool wine pouring machines and the friendly customers and also the fact that it seems like a great place to visit on a date with a friend or even on your own – was their rad music selection, which alternated between Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins, the Vapors, the Cure, the Smiths, and Duran Duran. I think God is their DJ…

The only thing I wish Pourtal offered was a weekend day for their Happy Hour – it’s hard for us almost-East Siders to make it over in time on a week night – though with the abundance of Santa Monica's Monday night all-nighters (The Yard and Copa d’Oro), maybe Monday is the new Saturday?!

--JB

Rating: 4.5 Martinis