Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Portland Happy Hour: Oba!

With the end of our college career rapidly approaching, Kel and I decided that margaritas were in order. Oba! has been on our "to do" list for quite some time and we were pleasantly surprised by unique interior and, even better, the $6 house margaritas.


After mulling over the menu, we decided to go for the chilé-corn fritters ($4.50), queso fundido dip ($6.50), and crispy coconut prawns ($6.50). The waitress warned us that the queso dip was a little greasy (true) and Kel and I decided that it would probably be better to share it with more than one person. The servings were all pretty large and so Oba! seems like it would be a good place to go if you have a large happy hour group. Plus, with the food ranging from $4-7 instead of the usual $3-5 at the places we usually frequent, more people to help foot the bill would be a good idea. And of course, being the margarita enthusiasts that we are, Kel and I had to sample the marrionberry margarita as well ($6.50). Definitely worth the extra 50 cents!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Portland Happy Hour: Tin Shed

Sadly, it's been quite a while since I've been able to enjoy happy hour what with school, dance and the bazillion other things I've somehow gotten myself involved with. But since that's all starting to wind down, I finally have the time to enjoy some good food and drinks again.


Kel and I decided that we needed to expand our horizons a bit and get out of our NW happy hour rut so we chose Tin Shed on N. Alberta as our next stop to try. We had both been there before, but only for breakfast and lunch (delicious), so we were eager to see what they had to offer for happy hour.


From their 7 item list, we decided to go with the tilapia tacos ($4), the artichoke dip ($5), and the berry garcia ($5). The berry garcia was a leap of faith as the description ( roasted red pepper, jalapeno, black bean, Tillamook chedder & berry jam, topped iwth jalapeno-cilantro creme fraiche) seemed a bit strange, especially the jam part. Turns out that the berry garcia is pretty much a quesadilla with some jam thrown into the mix, and it is probably one of my favorite happy hour snacks to date. The sweet berry jam is the perfect compliment to the spicy jalapeno and really, who can go wrong with lots of cheese?


The only thing disapointing about our meal was the drinks. Though a bit out of character, Kel and I decided to both go with the $5 happy hour drink special (there's only on each day), the appletini. Now I'm not a huge fan any combination of apples and alcohol to begin with, but this one I really had a hard time putting back. But a learning experience is always a good thing and now I know that sometimes it's just not worth it to save $2 if the drink of the day is never something you would order if it hadn't had been only $5.


Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Portland Happy Hour: Bo Restobar

Recently I have been craving Saucebox, and my friends Dena and Katie (not my happy hour co-blogger Katie) have never been there. We finally coordinated our schedules and decided to go yesterday, Monday, at 4. Bad news. Saucebox is closed Sunday and Monday. But we couldn't let that ruin our happy hour! Katie quickly looked up other happy hours in the area and we decided to try happy hour at Bo Restobar (corner of SW Broadway and Stark, 4 to 6pm) attached to Hotel Lucia.

Their happy hour food menu prices vary from $3 to $6 for food and house cocktails are $5. We ordered off their specialty cocktail menu, the best being Katie's Blueberry Cosmopolitan. For food we ordered sweet potato tempura and edamame for $3 each. Potstickers and papaya salad (which we didn't see any papaya and it was REALLY spicy) for $4 each and Bo's sliders, 3 hamburger sliders, for $6. The food was good, I would definitely recommend the sweet potato tempura but the drinks weren't my favorite. It was a great place to try, but I am not sure I would become a regular.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Portland Happy Hour: Elephants

Pre-Dance Showcase, another activity making Katie a very busy girl, Leslie, Dena and I hit up a new happy hour. During Leslie's and my last attempt to add to our suffering wardrobes we had lunch at Elephants Delicatessen, one place that is to be sure to have something that hits the spot, and noticed they have a daily happy hour from 5 to 7. 


We arrived 20 minutes early for happy hour so we had plenty of time to contemplate the menu. Although the bartenders started off a little condescending, we ended up having a fine time with them. It may be partially due to the incredible margarita's Kelly (yeah matching names) made, they included 1.5 limes, 1/2 orange, tequila, simple syrup, and grand marnier. They were pretty awesome, we all had two and for $6.50 each that's a pretty good deal!

Next we had to make decisions on the happy hour food menu, everything looked great, so our solution...order one of everything! Only $3.95 for each item, so that's not very expensive. One of everything gets you calamari, foccacia with cheese and tomato, chicken drummets, fried mahi mahi, fondue (with bread, carrots, and green apple), and fried cheese curds. Everything was totally worth it! For two drinks, and a lot of food, we each paid $20. Not bad, I would highly recommend it!