Bar Hopping in Downtown Portland
written by strangelilgirl
on August 16th, 2009
, 9 comments
(3 votes)
Our first stop was Clyde Common, the ultra modern bar & restaurant attached to the Ace Hotel (see my photo booth location!). There, we enjoyed an Alexander Brandy and a Mudslide in an atmosphere of casual fashion and super cool people! This was that classic place that you see in old movies, the kind of place you can’t wait to go to once you are old enough to drink. I felt like I should’ve been sipping a martini, wearing pearls, and calling everyone “darling,” except without pronouncing the r. We were so pleased with our first choice!
Next we went to Paddy’s Bar & Grill, supposedly one of the top 10 Irish pubs in the world! Located just around the corner on the same block as Hotel Fifty, what impressed me most about this place was their giant wall of alcohol, so big that they had one of those old sliding ladders just to reach the top! Very reminiscent of the library in Beauty & the Beast, or the wand shop in Harry Potter (yes, I can be nerdy even when I’m drunk)! We were also hungry by this point in the night, and enjoyed some of the best appetizers ever. Anthony ordered black bean quesadillas and I had some very authentic and fresh stuffed jalapenos; none of those Jack in the Box rip offs!
Last but not least, the climax of our night was spent at Ground Control. This was a perfect last stop for when we had drank the most, since the entire bar is filled with arcade games; the whole upper floor houses every type of pinball machine imaginable! We eased the night out here sipping on bottles of Hefeweizen and spending quarters like they were going out of style.
All 3 of these places have no cover charge, a great atmosphere, and instantly became favorite places of ours. The variety between them was exactly what we needed, while they all remained in close walking distance to each other and provided us ultimately with the exact same thing: a great experience!
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