Brian "Irregular Man About Town" T.'s Profile

Nathan Explosion once said, "I need a hundred beers, exactly, exactly a hundred, thank you."

For some reason this makes me think of Monday at Toronado. Mondays bring possibly the best beer deals on the planet. 3 dollars for beer.

When I say beer, I ain't talking PBRs. Toronado has beer form all over the California, the US of A, Belgium, Germany and other parts of the world I never been to.

They have beers from my favorite Wheat Beer Brewery, G. Schneider & Sohn. So delicious and complex spiciness unfurling. Damn, I'm getting thirsty.

Tornado also exposed me to a style of beer called Flander's Red. These sour ales ales are quite interesting with dark fruits and balsamic vinegary tastes.

It should also be mentioned that I think anytime I am in there a Mastodon song plays.

So why 4 stars only?  While the beers are served in the proper glasses, they are not served at the right temperatures. Often I am finding the temp way too cold for the quality and style of certain beers served. Maybe they have no control over the temperatures, but really wish that some of these awesome Belgians on tap would be served cool, so my mouth would taste all the loveliness.

See you tonight.

Careful, that first step is a doozy!

Small Bar is owned by Hamilton's Tavern in South Park or vice-versa, anyway, you catch my drift.  Small Bars slogan is "One Small Bar For Man, One Giant Bar for Mankind" and they have an elephant as a mascot.

As one would guess, having not set a foot or even two feet (gasssp) inside of this fine establishment, the joint is kinda small. If you suffer from claustrophobia or have any type of personal space issues or perhaps you are suffering from irritable bowel syndrome (one unisex bathroom), Small Bar might not be for you. However, I don't and I wasn't and I can easy become smitten with this place.

While they don't have shuffleboard or pool like Hamilton's. I imagine it would be a grand spectator sport if they indeed did.  What they indeed do did, scratch that, reverse it, is have a great cozy interior with these Morrocan looking red lanterns above the bar, dark patina wood, beer kitsch primarily from the land of beer (Belgium), cask and little comfy stools, and even a 2-3 cafe table outside area.  Which brings me to this unlit step down to the patio outside and the consequential step up to the inside that would follow.  I saw this guy totally bite it coming back into the bar. While it was mildly entertaining as I was enjoying my Belgium Triple at the bar, I took mental note repeatedly of this step, so I would hopefully not do the same.

Hopefully, is the operative word. The beer list here is definitely catered to fans of big bold beers and often the alcohol content is higher. Also, they have real honest to god, liquor (unlike hammy's) and they know how to use it. They make tons of my favorite old man cocktails (read: classic and stuff, just how i like em).  Manhattans, Bobby Burns, Martinis variations and even Churchill style, yum. Since these classics are what I usually make at home, I'm pleased that they do these and not some zany foo foo drinks.  Ah yes, and back to that step.  It is safe to say that it is probably easy for one to trip if one happened to be imbibing on the patio.  

Perhaps, some savoy stomach padding would help?  Well, Small Bar also serves food, but said food must be ordered at the kitchen window, the way it does at Hamilton's.

While, it is easy to drop lots of money here with such a plethora of deliciousness (Beers $4-8), I'm sure that I will make this place a haunt of mine.

However, I feel there might soon come a day where I sloppily take that small step for man, without the stepping part. I could only hope that it brings joy to everyone, including myself and no beer is harmed in the process.

LEFTY WINS!  LEFTY WINS!  LEFTY WINS!

There are very few things in life that I know, but food is one. Primarily pizza of all varieties done right.  I will refrain from news headline pun here.

Lefty's pizza is amazing in every way. The trinity of pizza is achieved by this fine establishment.  As always, when trying a pizzeria for the 1st time, I must order the basic and try to get an entire pie to see what I am dealing with before throwing toppings on it.

Now that time and time again I have come back to Lefty's and thrown on toppings, I still am partial to the plain at this place.

Crust:  Being a Chicago style joint we are talking deep dish black metal pans. Black metal like Bathory or Living Colour or like an a Blacksmith hammering hot metal on a black metal anvil which I sometimes like to imagine all of the aforementioned in order to distract myself while my stomach churns waiting 35-40min for the pie to be bestowed upon me. It is usually the dude from Living Colour listening to Bathory really loud while hammering metal against an anvil as sparks radiate in sharp bursts. Oh, and he is making a kick ass broadsword to cut my pizza the right way. Damnit! Now, I am back on pizza and my stomach.  The experience of smelling pizza for that long while waiting on yours can be a painful, but it is well worth it. The crust is crunchy, a bit flaky, and dare I say on the lighter side for Chicago. It is not oily at all and the bottom is dusted with cornmeal.

Cheese:  What comes next on a Chicago pizza is cheese, not sauce. If someone says otherwise, they are fvckin liars and should not be trusted watching your cat, dog, guinea pig, boa, or houseplants when you're out of town. Lefty's is very generous with the cheese. Tons of coma inducing gooey bliss. This is where the pizza gets really heavy, but this is the way it should be for Lefty's.

Sauce:  If Jesus was a food, he'd be Lefty's sauce. I can't recall ever having a better sauce so perfectly matched with a pizza. Not saying that it isn't out there or I haven't eaten it, but as soon as I take a bite my mind goes blank and all I can think is how great this sauce is. It is simple--tomatoes, basil, maybe a bit of garlic.  It is sweet, juicy, tangy, and savory.

While this style pizza I might not be able to eat for every meal, they way I could eat Luigi, it is one V.I.Pizza, and possibly the best overall pizza in town.  Actually, I'd say Lefty and Luigi and Sicilian Thing are tied for me at the top. They are all different and all excellent in their own rights. After that I really don't know or care to eat many other pizzas.

Also, see Amber C.'s review of Lefty's, since it documents the first taste.

The only thing that Lefty's can do better, is get Old Style on tap instead of PBR. Note: I asked them about the lack of Old Style and they told me it was due to it only getting as far as AZ before it shot way up in cost. Maybe eventually some distribution deal will pan out.

Sometimes I wonder if I am honest or just not good at playing the game of life; jumping through the hoops and whatnot.

Ruggy is leaving and it is a bummer. This was sort of his farewell party and Danny is to take over. While, I am sure he will do great, change is never easy.

The venue is amazing. In fact, I will truly say, this is hands down the coolest interior vibe of any yelp elite party. Kinda want to come here lots and see how it feels on another night.  However, the whole being under surveillance thing sorta brings back bad memories. I won't expound.

Biked down and it was a a pretty easy ride. The way to fly for sure, especially given the busy location and lack of 22" spinners on my Matrix, brah!

Skyy vodka tonics was pretty rad, but this was a wine bar and I was so ready to drink lots of red red wine to make me feel so fine. No red wine was offered as comp at this party. Lame! :-(

Another downer was the lack of food. While I am not asking for an entree, a little pita and hummus or pretzels or pizza or something muchable would have been a big plus.

Overall, the space was amazing. Ruggy has been amazing. and ummm.... I think those are the two big plusses.

Afterwards, I biked to ladies night and Universal and hung out by the firepit seeing grils that looked way to familiar while motivating my friend to talk to this cute girl.

This was followed by more vodka tonic and almost dancing at AC Lounge.

The night was closed out by biking thru the drive-thru at Carl's Jr. to get a Orange Dreamsicle Milkshake. I biked down 30th no-handed draining my milkshake. It was deliciousness.

Any night ending this way can't be anything less than 4 stars.

I heart Planned Parenthood. I heart them a lot.

As a big pro-choicer, it is a beautiful thing that an organization like Planned Parenthood exists.

It is truly a blessing and if I was an eagle, I would be crying eagle tears right now.

Gotta keep it honest. Rule numero uno.

This party was felt really peculiar for me. While I was in a good mood, I wasn't really feeling it. This is what can only be described as bad party Feng Shui.

Hosting the party at Fit sounded neat-o to me at first, but once there it felt broken-up and lacked flow. There were little rooms and big rooms and tasting booths and drinks spread over a large area. Crowds here, there, and lines in awkward places.  Seems the vibe got in a ten car pile up somewhere in that workout machinery between the crowds.

Also, another issue I had with the location was the temperature of that joint.  Did they simply turn the HVAC system to unoccupied mode for the event.  I'm kinda thinking that they did, because gyms usually have over-sized cooling capacity for all the heat a packed gym generates.  So not the the nicest climate for imbibing in alcohol.

On the subject of booths, I kinda felt like I was at some convention with everyone plugging the hell out of their products.  The fact that I was wearing a name tag only exacerbated this.  Peeps were like, "you go to that booth?" "what booth is that from?"  YIKES! There were some decent drinks and foods though, despite the booth format.  Notable for me was a serrano chili mojito from El Dorado and yelps own Misty with her Pubcakes.  BTW, what is up with pasta inside bread?  Pre-marathon snacks mayhaps.

My friend got her hair did by the salon booth. Mike Brown was wonderful as usual with the photography.  Ruggy was a great host as usual.  A handful of old yelpers and lots of new ones too.  Oh my, I felt Uber-Unasian (new word, count-it! - very applicable on yelp, too.)

The photo flip-book shut down fairly early and the yelp shirts ran out of sizes. I don't hold that against anyone. I probably should have swooped in early like a freebie expo vulture to get the goods.  Sorry, but lines at booths at a party are just kinda awkward to me.

Finally the DJ was really awful. Lots of tacky mash-ups where the best quality of one song was dropped-out to be replaced with the worst quality of a another song that didn't fit. Oh yes, and those predictable beats that were neither interesting in tone or pattern or...  Does anyone with some equipment now count as a DJ?
Panic! Hang the DJ.

So, regardless of the flow and vibe and temp being off. It was still pleasant outside of these things.

Yet, I must say. Bar Basic Party, Pool Party, and Ugly Sweater Party were way cooler.

Can't wait for future events.  Keep on Yelpin' In The Free World ( yo, can somebody give me a generic beat on that shiz?)

Sincerely Yours and Mine,
Brian T.

Whenever I explain to this place to friends I usually find myself using the phrases, "like target but with alcohol." and "a candy shop for adults".

Cooridor is kinda like Bevmo, if you have lived in a state that has those.

However, I like it better. The prices are good and they have lots of booze of all sorts. Tons of wine. A walk in beer room that is chilled and contains kegs.

Their customer service has always been pretty damn good. If you can get it in Maryland, Corridor will order it for you.  They have in store tastings.  Also, if you can't quite recall the wine you had that one time (so often the case with me) or need a recommendation, Corridor can help you out.

I'm hungry late night.
Free pickles are a bonus.
Their food hurts tummach.

Last night I stopped into Lancer's again while on a nice bike ride with a friend.

I feel it is only fair to add some information to my previous reviews. Sharing is the point of yelp, right?  Well, outside of the superfun gossip part of course.

Lancer's has no beer on tap, but they have a somewhat decent selection of bottled beers. So, we had Stone IPA and West Coast IPA, which were $4 each.

It was dead silent in the bar, so we decided to play some music.  We got pretty excited about the internet jukebox and stuck in a dollar thinking we will each get a song or 2.  No Dice!  It ended being one song per dollar, which we only found out after we picked just 1 song due to the silly money to credit conversion.  This was a bit disheartening, but hey, when life hands you shat, make shatade.  So I just had to Moby Dick em! --Moby Dick being the live version of the Led Zep song from How The West was won, which is essentially a 19 plus minute John Bonham drum solo.

As for the pool tables on this Wednesday night, they were apparently taken by a group of people, but they weren't playing.  Still they seemed to be regulars and we let them do whatever it was they were doing.

After chatting over a beer the convo wnet to scotch and we got eager to try some of the single malts they had.  We tried Balvenie and Aberlour which were both 12year aged.  Pretty good stuff, but the vanilla, date, and almost almond flavors of the Balvenie was our favorite of the two.  I don't recall the charge for these drinks, but I believe they were reasonable, however the pour was in a standard bar shot galss which was sorta not proper for a good scotch.

Despite the few hangups I have about this place, I still like it a good deal. It simply feels like a basement bar. The place, just has a very chill atmosphere and it is kinda works naturally. Call it bar feng-shui.

Oh yes, and Moby Dick ended up being a fine strategy, because it created a backlog of other people's picks 6, like Hank Williams, Nick Cave, and The Ventures, which played back to back and kept the tunes rolling.

Afterwards we rolled out and kept a fast pace back in the chilly night air back to North Park.

I would say that this store is convenient.  In fact, I might even say that this is a convenience store.

Both 3 times I have been here, haz been awesome.  Parkside Market has Beer, Wine, and Instant Krazy Glue!!!  Who else smells themed party night?

#1 A friend of mine went to an unmanned register and stood there for a long while before she realized no people = no service.  All the while another friend and I stood outside in the darkness eating a bowl popcorn with hot sauce on it in the rain.  We realized that we watching Clerks 3... wait, that hasn't been made yet has it?

#2 Got something that I don't recall.  Lets, for argument sake call it, toenail clippers, and or a box of shotgun shells and or toenail clippers and Coca-Cola.

This store is really close to me.  So close that it is convenient.