Fat Tuesday = Sick Day Wednesday

Mardi Gras celebrations tend to involve some of our favorite things – drinks, food, and live music (… and boobs and beads but those fall a little lower on the ‘favorites’ list.)

We’re not sure which festive events we will be attending – but there are a few good options across the city:

Liquid Kitty, WestLA (5pm – 2am)

·      No Cover,

·      Live Cajun/Zydeco band (“The Damn Well Please Organ Trio”)

·      Grilled Cheese truck out front at 10:30pm

·      Drink Specials: $3 Abita Beer, $6 Hurricanes, $6 Sazerac Martinis, $2 PBR, $3 Low Lifes (Pabst & a Shot)

Rush Street, Culver City (7pm – Close)

·      Specialty Drinks: Mint Juleps, Hurricanes, Alabama Slammers

·      Free Party Favors

·      Masked Bead Girls

Westwood Brewing Co, Westwood (Beginning @ 6pm)

·      Free Beads

·      Gumbo Special: $7/bowl

·      Zydeco Music, 6pm – 8pm

·      8pm: New Orleans Themed Trivia Night!

South, Santa Monica (4pm – Close)

·      $4 Beer Specials

·      Beads, Masks

J Lounge, Downtown (5pm – 8pm)

·      “Fat Happy Hour” Drink Specials

·      Creole Menu Items by Chef Oz

·      Live Entertainment

For those just looking for a good Cajun meal: 

Dominick's, West Hollywood
Mardi Gras Themed Menu included $5 Gumbo, $6 Jambalaya, $8 Eggplant pirogues with shrimp sauce

The Gumbo Pot, Mid City

This spot serves their delicious Cajun food year-round at the Grove Farmer's market. However, for Mardi Gras the Farmer's Market transforms into a Mardi-Gras party with live music and Gumbo Pot has King Cakes available for purchase for the holiday.

Maybe plan to call in for a ‘personal day’ at work on Wednesday? You’ll need it after you take down all those southern-style drinks!

Get Drunk Like Gee-Dub

 

Back in the day when Washington was elected, the campaign trail was all about providing tons of Hard-A to the public. Citizens would wander through the town square, from campaign table to campaign table, getting their fill of whiskey from each candidate. The larger the quantity, and the higher the quality, of booze you provided: the more people liked you. By the time the drinker was ready to vote they were thoroughly trashed, and because drunks are easier to convince into voting for you, you were basically ensured a vote if they finished their binge drinking at your campaign table (ingenious!)

In honor of this old-as-time tradition of providing booze to gain a following - CommeCa is offering drink specials today at a special price. For President's Day only, a select menu of cocktails will be available for just $4.40 (since we're at Presidente numero 44.) 

Here's the menu: 

1. Frost/Nixon: "Last Word" - gin, lime juice, Green Charteuse, maraschino 
2. Kennedy: "Cuba Libre" - cola, lime, white rum
3. FDR: "Dark and Stormy" - black rum, lime juice, ginger syrup, splash of soda
4.  Washington: "Penicillin" - Scotch, ginger, lemon, honey

While you're there try the French Onion soup - it's delicious!

CommeCA
8479 Melrose Avenue
11:30am - 3pm, 5:30pm - 11pm

Happy President's Day Everyone!!!

Are you ready for some football?!

So its the NFL playoffs (or superbowl, or birthday, or office party, or random weekend) and you want to have a partaaaaay to celebrate the awesomeness of your favorite team/business/birth/drinking habits. Rather than hit up the usual bar/restaurant we have an idea:

Hold a tailgate. And we don't mean the usual - pull up your pick up truck and grill in the back while listening to the football or baseball game on the radio - we're talking a totally unique tailgate involving the best tailgating vehicle known to man:

The Games2U Bus.

This bus comes fully equipped with three TVs (satellite connected) inside for video games or sports, and two TVs outside to play Wii (or to watch more sports) and a large 12ft inflatable projection screen TV for...err... watching sports. Games2U even brings a laser tag set up and a giant human hamster ball for those who can't handle standing around, drinking, playing video games, and watching sports (if you are such person we obviously could not be friends).

Now we don't want you to stop at renting just one 'vehicle of fun' - but rather go for TWO. The second vehicle being a food truck of course! We love the idea of hiring the Border Grill or Grilled Cheese Truck (or similar mobile kitchen) and then just buying a few 30-racks of beer at Ralphs. Just think - food truck on one side, video games/TVs on the other, big tub of beer/wine in the center. This is definitely party love.

Games2U fees start at $249 for the first 90 minutes, each additional hour is another $100.
Whether you charge your buddies a per person fee, or you're ever so generous and host the whole thing yourself, this is bound to be the best party you've ever had.

BONUS: If you mention FinerThingsLA when you make your reservation with Games2U LA you'll get 10% off!

Shoot them an email for reservations and more information: games2u.la@gmail.com

Quick Note on Melgard Public House

Just a quick tidbit:

Following up on yesterday's note about new bars opening up in the area - Melgard Public House (7505 Melrose) has announced (via Urban Daddy) they will be holding a soft opening this Saturday.

They will be offering free food  (pizza, maybe burgers too...) but no beer or wine until their license transfers over next week. There will be an outside patio opening up too in a couple weeks (construction not quite complete yet).

If you're cool with just free food head over Saturday - otherwise we'd recommend waiting a couple weeks until you can get the full food/booze/patio experience.

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days...

I don't care if Monday's blue, Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too..

Just because it's Monday doesn't mean the weekend has to end, to keep your drinking binge going, here is our round-up of drink/food specials to last you through the week:

Monday:

• Taste on Melrose (West Hollywood): 1/2 off bottles of wine
• Nic's (Beverly Hills): $7 Appetizers & Martinis, $21 Three Course Menu
• Citizen Smith (Hollywood): Half off food and drinks, 6pm-midnight
• Malo (Silverlake): $1 Tacos (Thanks Harry!)
• Kitchen24 (Hollywood): $3 Beers, $5 Cocktail, $5 Apps, 3PM - 11PM

Tuesday:

•  Taco Tuesday!...the choices are endless but here are some highlights:
• The Spanish Kitchen (West Hollywood): $2 tacos
• Marix (West Hollywood): $7.95 all you can eat tacos + Margarita Madness from 4-7pm
• El Toro Cantina (next to Busby's East - Mid Wilshire): $1 tacos
• Cabo Cantina (either Sunset or Wilshire on the westside): $5 all you can eat tacos
• Kay & Dave's (Pico/Overland, Pacific Palisades, Culver City, Brentwood): $1 Tacos + Happy Hour Drink Specials (i.e. $1 Margaritas) from 4-7pm. 
• Cha Cha Lounge (Silverlake): if you don't like tacos or enjoy hipsters, the Cha Cha lounge has $1.50 PBR all night on Tues

Wednesday:

• Bodega Wine Bar (Santa Monica): Wine Caraffe Night, regular carafes $15, premium $21
• The Edison (Downtown): $4 drinks
• Big Wangs (Hollywood): $0.25 chicken wings and $2.50 beer (chosen by the bartenders), 4pm to close

Thursday:

• The Edison (Downtown): The Edison strikes again! $0.35 cent martinis, 5-7pm
• Lola's (West Hollywood): Late night happy hour special, $5 martinis 10:30pm-12:30pm

So if you didn't have a reason to drink every night before, you should now, hope this makes your week a little more bearable.

Wine & Dine... At the Mall?

Last night we discovered a great way to wine and dine - at Westfield Century City!

Yes - the mall.

But before you judge too quickly, get this: the mall has a great food court will REAL food options (Lawry's, Gulen's Mediterranean, Take a Bao, Etc...) so everyone in your party can get the kind of food they want and reconvene to grub. There's no awkward splitting of the bill, no debating over what type of food everyone wants, no worries that its going to cost a fortune.

Once you've gotten your food fix head over the Ummba Grill - where you can order drinks on the malls' rooftop patio, chill in the comfortable outdoor sofas,  and on certain nights - listen to live music. We just chilled at Ummba with a few glasses of wine until midnight last night. Better than your average bar its not incredibly loud so you can actually hold a conversation without sounding like a 60-year-old Reno cocktail waitress the next morning.

Just a word to the wise - if the night gets away from you and you realize you've been at the mall for four hours (like we did), find a place to validate your parking. Century City gives 3 free hours - but after that the price jumps up to $7 for your next 30 minutes, and $2 for each 15 minutes after that. Ouch!

Westfield Century City
10250 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90067

Happy Hour Alert

Just a quick note before you head out for the weekend,

8oz Burger Bar announced yesterday on Twitter they have a new 2010 Special: Happy Hour Every Day (10pm - Close). Tonight being Friday they should be open until around 2am.

Happy hour specials include discounted beer, wine, and cocktails as well as a limited happy hour food menu. Happy Hour is served only at the bar though so take time to practice your lurking skills so you can score a seat.

80z Burger Bar

7661 Melrose Avenue

323.852.0008

www.8ozburgerbar.com

Take Me Home Tonight

Experiencing 'Operator Error' after a night of drinking? Don't want to leave your car at a meter over night, but also don't want to find yourself in a jail cell?

Call Y-Drive.

For $38 bucks these guys will meet you at your car, fold up the little scooter they arrived on, and drive you home in your own vehicle. Then they'll depart your residence in the same manner they came - on that awesome little scooter. And better than a cab - they accept all major credit cards and cash.

The drivers are usually posted up at one main location (just look for the guys in the silver jackets) but they will also come pick you up if you give them a call.

It’s already a great deal (less than a parking ticket, similar to a cab fare) but if you're Downtown and need to get to Westwood (or some similar lengthy distance) this is the deal of the century - not to mention the $10k you will save in lawyer’s fees from avoiding that DUI.

Follow YDrive on twitter to see where they will be based each night: http://twitter.com/ydriveLA

Or Check out their website to give them a call and schedule a pick up:

http://www.ydrivela.com/