Before Phauxtog arrived, I ended up walking around Downtown and Belltown and checked out a few bars ... The Tap Room: 160 beers on tap, heavily skewed towards North America. This is not a place to go to pick up women, but an okay place to catch a game. Had some popcorn shrimp, eh, not bad, not great.
Whiskey Bar: Wanna-be hipster dive (it's hard to be a real dive if you've only been open for 5 years). Awesome Whiskey selection -- they had the Yamazaki. Bartender Christie (or maybe Chrissy?) was cool and friendly. Patrons discussing their baby-momma, scoffing at homeless people, Spanish speaking people, and other relatively retarded conversation.
Casablanca: How can a bar in a city be totally dead on a Thursday night. Lame.
Shorty's: Now we're getting there. Hipster bar that Melissa B took me to in after our "meeting" in January '06. Pinball, Hamm's, cute patrons. Good place to throw back a few.
Juju: I stepped outside of Shorty's and ran into Mantero, a psuedo-homeless guy who pointed me at Uma and Amanda (pictures of the latter to follow). I actually left my beer at Shorty's to join the rubicund Uma and sort of contrarian Amanda. The drinks were top notch, muddled lime gimlet was just about perfect. Sort of felt like Elixir North.