Power Hour

When you think of power hour, do shivers shoot down your spine as your are taken back to the days at the frat house downing luke-warm shots of Natural Light on the minute mark? Shiver no more, my friend, for power hour will soon take on a new, more comforting (and decidedly classier) memory for you.

Morton’s, the long-time Dallas mainstay for a delicious steak and a to-die-for lobster has upped the ante for happy hour. Offering drinks and apps for a song (at least relative to other Morton’s prices) in the bar, Power Hour at Morton’s has quickly become a main contender in the “Best HH in Dallas” contest for me.

We’re talking quality HH here, people. Take a seat in the bar and order a dirty martini and their crab cake sliders and you’ll be forever in love. The wait staff is so incredibly friendly that you wonder if they mistook you for a celebrity and the laid-back luxury of the place makes you feel like one.

The drinks are pretty darn strong and you can down them like water (though I don’t recommend that). Order one of the Mortinis or a cocktail and see (double) what I mean after two. The service is quick so don’t bother ordering before you’re done with your previous drink.

Drink strength: 4.0
Overall: 4.6

Specials – in the bar Sunday-Friday:
open-6:30 p.m., 9 p.m.-close | bar bites (below)
all day | $5 beers, $6 wines by the glass, $7 Mortinis and cocktails

Bar Bites:$5: Iceberg Wedge Bites | Blue Cheese Steak Fries | Chicken Goujonettes

$6: Mini Crab Cake BLT’s | Smoked Salmon Pizza | Three Prime Cheeseburgers | Four Petite Filet Mignon Sandwiches

Oysters on the Half Shell and Colossal Shrimp Cocktail also available

an apology for my absence.

Dear SDD fans,

I know that my negligence this summer has left many of you disenchanted with my little website. For this, I am sorry. I know your life suffered immensely without my periodic witty commentary on Dallas watering holes (HA! Totally kidding; you probably didn’t even notice I was gone).

I had a tough summer – not gonna lie. First, the start-up I was working for laid half of its employees off. None of us could believe it. It was so unexpected. If we knew that this is what the company was going to do, I’m sure there would’ve been many of us who would’ve started looking for a new job straight away so they had something lined up. This happened to my friend. She was given notice, and she was able to improve her resume with the help of somewhere like these resume writing services virginia and she found a job almost straight away. I personally think that my employers should’ve done something similar, but they didn’t give us any time to prepare at all. As you can imagine, this put me (and everyone else) in a very difficult situation.

To follow that one, my “lease” ended and had to find a new place. Don’t get me wrong, I was probably ready to move into a new property anyway, but the timing of it all wasn’t ideal. Of course, buying a house is something that we all want the chance to achieve one day, but like any sensible homeowner, I would want to make sure that I have looked into specific home loans to help ensure that I have enough money to be able to do so. That makes sense, doesn’t it? It does to me. But because my lease has now ended, I need to start looking for either an apartment or house as soon as possible. As icing on the cake, a DART bus decided to make my family’s life a living hell. As some of my Twitter followers may know, my sister was in a very serious accident in May – running in Dallas is brutal; keep your eyes on the road and avoid buses that may try to chase you down.

I spent the summer basically living with my wonderful sister and trying to get her back to her old self, looking for a job, and looking for a new, more Susie-like apartment. One we could decorate as we wished, using wall stickers and other items to turn into our home. As you may have surmised, this didn’t leave me much time to drink … or write about it.

I am happy to share that life is somewhat back to normal; I have a new job, a new apartment, and my sister is kicking butt and taking names. I haven’t ever seen anyone so emotionally strong as my sister during this difficult time.

Thanks to all of you who lent kind words during my summer of hell.

That being said … I’M BACK! 🙂 You can expect reviews regularly and my HH list to be updated regularly.

Vodka and kisses –

Susie O 🙂

City Tavern

This quintessential laid-back “pub” has long been a favorite of Downtown residents. With live music, pretty damn good food, and a varied clientele, it offers something for most of us.

Walking in on Monday, I passed the regulars that bogart the outside tables and walked into the two-story bar. My eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the dark atmosphere but when they did, my friend and I quickly found our booth and slid in (don’t get the one in the back downstairs – it’s tiny). The tables are all a little wobbly but do their job satisfactorily.

You have your typical collection of Downtown bargoers here. There are the regulars that people watch and smoke like chimneys outside, the boisterous bartenders, just-off-work single men haunched over their brews, and one or two randoms.

From the things I’ve heard of this Downtown mainstay, there are two things you MUST try: the Dirty Dusty and the taco salad. The famed Dirty Dusty consists of a PBR and a (big) shot of Jack … for a mere $4. The taco salad IS as good as they say, and bigger than you’d expect (though if you’re on a diet, ask for it in a regular bowl instead of the DELICIOUS taco bowl).

The drinks are decently poured and the drinks aren’t too terribly expensive. Definitly go on days that you like the special – we went on a Monday (service industry day complete with Jager, Goldschläger, and Rumplemintz – OH MY). Needless to say, one shot of Tuaca and I was done with shots for the night b/c they were generous shots.

While there isn’t a set “happy hour” per say, they have an all day special each day of the week. I’ll take that over having to haul ass somewhere after work to make it in time for one drink.

Drink strength: 3.4
Overall: 4.6

City Tavern
www.citytaverndowntown.com | @citytaverndfw
1402 Main Street | 214-745-1402

Go forth, embibe (but not too much!), consume, & be merry for life is short and drinks are sweet… if you know the bartender.

SusieDrinksDallas 🙂

#5851

ohnewsroom:

Editor 1, after walking into chair: “I’m drunk.”

Editor 2: “Listen, we’re all drunk. You don’t see us falling over.”

Vodka under a microscope is beautiful! Someone get me a print as a housewarming gift. 🙂

Click the picture to see what other alcohols look like under a microscope!

mario sabino’s

Thanks to one of my delightful readers, Candace Drury, I knew about this little gem of a watering hole.

I’ll start by saying that it’s kind of tough to find … not really tough but it’s just further than you’re probably accustomed to driving down Lemmon to find good margaritas (cite: Uncle Julio’s and Gloria’s). When you find this place, though, sit your butt down and order a margarita as fast as your mouth can say the words. They have margaritas that will make your head spin (both because they are good and because they are so strong). Blackberry, blueberry, guava, and pineapple along with their traditional margarita are available.

The happy hour hours aren’t anything to snear at … it’s all day every week day. Not bad, eh? It’s nice to have the chance to take your time getting to happy hour and not worry about missing last happy hour call. As my mom said, “It’s always happy there!”

The place is good for some margaritas, that is for SURE. For food, I’d stick with something simple. It’s really pretty generic food (not bad at all, just generic) so just some queso with your margaritas is probably the best plan.

Candace told me to ask for Pancho because he is the best but he wasn’t working the day I was in. It wasn’t a big deal because the rest of the staff is snappy and incredibly friendly. I asked our waiter to have a blueberry margarita ready for my mom when she met us and he set it down less than 30 seconds after she sat down – frozen as it could be. Mario is usually there hanging out at the bar overseeing his staff. I don’t know where “Sabino” came from, but it’s comforting when the owner uses his own name — or at least part of it.

Drink strength: 4.3
Overall: 3.6

Mario Sabino’s
www.mariosabinos.com
5404 Lemmon Avenue | (214) 599-9744

Specials:
Sunday | after 4 p.m. | $2 house margaritas
Monday-Friday | all day | $3 house drinks (including mojitos), $6 specialty drinks

Flip-ping Good

Flips is one of those places that you find a reason to go to. Since there’s really a little bit of everything here, that’s not hard to do.

A mouth-watering burger, a mini-arcade, a to-die patio (complete with plenty of seating, misters, and a huge projector), six pool tables, two bars, plenty of flat screens, incredibly clean restrooms, and bomb-a homemade chips are just a few of my favorite things about this laid-back resto.

Flips has something for families, sports nuts, pool junkies, bar flies, and the rest of us (though I guess I am considered a bar fly, so the rest of YOU). Walking into Flips, you are greeted by a HUGE stuffed bear on either side of you and a friendly hostess. You choose which bar or seating area fits your needs at the moment (basically whichever is closest to the huge flat screen playing what you want to watch or the large taxidermy* you want to sit under) and take a seat to peruse the menu of goodies.

Drinking at Flips seems like a good idea, and when you see the happy hour prices and drink specials, you realize that it’s a brilliant one. They not only have a stellar happy hour lineup, but they also offer deeply discounted drinks each day, (wait for it…) ALL DAY. They aren’t slouches over there, that’s for sure. The drinks are just strong enough to make them interesting but not so strong as to make you questionable while trying to balance on one foot to get the 8-ball in the corner pocket to win the pool game (it darn near made me more confident I was going to make it!).

The sweet potato fries are pretty darn good along with the hand-cut potato chips. You can’t go wrong with most of the food unless you’re a vegetarian (which a mural on the wall very clearly states isn’t healthy). The burgers are made with USDA choice chuck and are freshly ground. All burgers are $8 so it eliminates the dilemma of whether to splurge and spend the extra $2 for the mushroom swiss vs. the traditional. The serving sizes won’t leave you wanting more; Flips portions are very value oriented.

The wait staff is friendly and very outgoing. They can chat to you with a smile and still do their job very well. I don’t think I ever had less than a third of a glass of Diet Dr. Pepper before another was offered up. Also, have them tell you about the fireballs … you must try.

The only drawback about this place for this Dallasite is just that, I live quite far from it. From now on, the meetings that take me across the Metroplex will be strategically scheduled to ensure a pocket of time to visit the Flips bear (who has his own Facebook page … seriously). http://www.facebook.com/?sk=ru#!/LILLFLIP?ref=ts

*No animals were harmed for the specific purpose of display in a Flips building. All taxidermy was purchased at a charity auction whose proceeds went to the preservation of wildlife … ironic, eh?

Drink strength: 3.8
Overall: 4.4

Fort Worth Location:
Happy Hour | all day Monday, Tuesday-Friday 3-8 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. | $2 domestic drafts, $3 import drafts and wells

Monday | $2.25 domestic bottles, $2.50 domestic pints, $3.50 import pints and house wine, and $3.25 wells
Tuesday | $3 Tito’s, $5 Tito’s and Red Bull, $2.50 drafts, LIVE MUSIC at 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday | $3 22 oz. domestic drafts
Friday, Saturday | $2.25 domestic bottles, $2.50 domestic pints, $3.50 import pints and house wine, and $3.25 wells
Sunday | $2.75 Corona

Grapevine Location:
Happy Hour | Monday-Friday, 3-8 p.m., all day Thursday | $2 domestic drafts, $3 import drafts, $3 wells

Monday | $4 bomb shots, $3 Crown and down, $2.50 wells
Tuesday | $2 domestic pints, $2.50 import pints, TRIVIA at 7 p.m.
Wednesday | $2.50 22 oz. big boy domestic drafts, $2.75 Tecate and Corona bottles
Friday | $2.75 Tecate and Corona bottles
Saturday | $2 domestic pints, $2.75 Tecate and Corona bottles
Sunday | $2 domestic pints