March 20, 2009

Before I start, I will let you know that there are no pictures for this weekend. Again, this idea just came to me! But in the coming posts, I plan to include many fun and descriptive pictures to accompany these posts. And trust me, it is a travesty that I do not have them to include from this weekend.

Heading downtown at 4pm on a Friday and hoping that traffic will play game with what's in mind. We are heading to Andina for their amazing happy hour. $5 cocktails people, you cannot beat that! That's right, every cocktail on their menu is a measly $5 from 4 - 6pm. Although we have both been to Andina before for their fantastic dinner menu, Heather only recently sat through happy hour and is now delighted to be pulling Patrick through traffic in order to enjoy it together.

We are bar people, as in - we sit AT the bar. You have just GOT to love your local bartender. Dry witted and annoyed by the many people slugging in after a long day only to take advantage of the cheap drinks and eats and leave a recession inspired tip...however, that is not us. We love our bartenders and are sure (after a few happy hour cocktails) that they too share our admiration. H started with the RON-YKI-ON, a roasted ginger infused silver rum shaken with grapefruit juice, lime juice and cane sugar, served with a cardamon sugar rim. Patrick was boring (in H's opinion) and went for a classic mojito. We also shared a happy hour portion ($2/2 skewers) of Andina's marinated chicken kebobs served with scrumptious huacatay-peanut sauce and a small plate of Heather's favorite - Yuca rellena. For course #2, P had a glass of Albarino and H went for their extremely fresh Pina Colada. Course #3? Pina Colada #2...what can we say? That is some good Pina!

Leaving Andina, we decided to head to the eclectic Mississippi neighborhood which hosts one of our new favorite wine spots - Lupa wine bar. This wine bar is fantastic, full of extremely reasonably priced wines from every region, a knowledgeable and sexy wine mistress, great food, good people and an overall ambiance not to be missed. We had an incredible bottle of Burgandy and a few glasses of Cava.

Next stop on the weekend train of fun was our most favorite cocktail spot - Teardrop Lounge. Co-owners, Danielle and Ted really know how to mix an inspired, spirit-filled drink. We have been stopping by their spot regularly since they opened in 2007 and love not only the cocktails, but the bartenders, servers and food as well. This is a place not to be missed. You cannot and will not find a lounge of this caliber in all of Portland. From their homemade tonic water to their special ice cubes, this bar is the place to be - and we were there. :) However, this is where the night starts to get fuzzy...a few drinks from Teardrop and we are making our decisions to finish out the night in our favorite neighborhood dive bar - Rococco's. Typically, we like to head into this trashy spot for some stiff drinks and pinball but we were treated with a surprise for Friday night - live band! And let me tell you, the Rococco's clientele were in rare form Friday night. The band was actually great - Tom Petty, Springsting and a little ACDC, can you go wrong? I think not. We spent about 45 minutes laughing with (ok, maybe at) the other concert goers, enjoyed our drinks and found our way back to our car and to the Burger King drive thru. Yep kids...our extravagant night found us going through the king's castle for some chicken tenders and a burger before passing out and starting all over the next day. Seriously though...it was fun!