BEST IRISH PUB 2005 | Fibber Magees Irish Restaurant & Pub | People & Places | Phoenix
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BEST IRISH PUB

Fibber Magees Irish Restaurant & Pub

We've picked Chandler's Fibber Magees as the Best Irish Pub again for one salient reason: To be a great Irish pub, you not only have to have great drink, an authentic atmosphere, and Irish music, you also have to have a solid Irish menu, one that does more than give lip service to the cuisine of the Emerald Isle. More than any of the other fine Irish establishments in the Valley, Fibber Magees delivers on Irish eats with baskets of soda bread, plates of boxty -- the Irish potato pancake -- bangers and champ, trad Irish breakfast with black and white pudding, and so on. One or two other Irish places in the area make a stab at Irish food, but none comes close to the quality of what you get at Fibber Magees. Yes, you can get a proper pint of Guinness here, as well as a shot of Jameson. And there are plenty of fair colleens to gaze upon. But the food is why we keep comin' back, and it's why Fibbers keeps winning this award.

BEST PLACE TO SNATCH A PURSE

The Old Bags Luncheon

We've gotta tell you, if we have to go to one more charity luncheon, we're going to puke up our chicken plate. We gave at the office, sweetie -- now can we go to the mall and shop? Here's exciting news from the society scene: Now there's a charity luncheon where you can actually pick up a fabulous handbag (one that might even have some history) and give to a very good cause at the same time. The Old Bags Luncheon, sponsored by Homeward Bound, a Valley organization that provides transitional housing for the homeless and victims of domestic violence, features a silent auction of vintage and designer purses. Some are donated by department stores, but others come from celebrities: Last year's auction featured a vintage Hermes bag given by Sofia Coppola, and even Oprah made a donation. So did Cindy McCain. We're not so sure we want her baggage, but we hear there were bags by Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Ferragamo. Certainly worth choking down some rubber chicken, and since the luncheon's scheduled for November 8 at the Arizona Biltmore, the food might not be so bad.

BEST HOOKAH BAR

Red Sea Hookah Lounge

If you regard pitas, shish kebabs and belly dancers as a distraction to your hookah pipe smoking, then the Red Sea Hookah Lounge is the place for you. The Red Sea isn't a restaurant; it's a straight smoking joint. Sprawl on the velvet love seats and order up a water pipe of tobacco in flavors like mango, blueberry and peach. If you want food, they'll go to the bar next door and get you something. Otherwise, this place is about smoking, and nothing else.

BEST YENTA

Bonnie the Matchmaker

Her Web site doesn't provide hook-ups for the lovelorn, because Madame Matchmaker says the best way to meet your one true love is by exploiting her peculiar talent for tying people's knots. And if Bonnie Wills should maybe disdain online dating services, who are we to judge? She is, after all, responsible for hundreds of local marriages, and, if she happens to (God forbid) hook you up with the wrong person -- which she almost never does -- she'll go back and start over again, on her dime. This is matchmaking the old-fashioned way, with Bonnie interviewing prospective lover boys and gals, then arranging dinner dates that, she swears, more often than not result in true love. Losers and schlemiels? Not to worry when it's Bonnie doing the matchmaking -- she does criminal background checks on each client.

Mazel tov!

BEST LOCAL STAG MAG

Playtime

L.A. has Hustler. Chicago has Playboy. New York has Penthouse. So what does P-town have in response? Playtime, fool. If you haven't seen it, Playtime is glossier than 944, with content we're a hell of a lot more interested in perusing. Its purview is the PHX's extensive strip-club scene, one of the largest in the nation, as well as all things adult in the Valley of the Sun. Not only does Playtime do features on local strippeterias, it also publishes Penthouse-style pictorials of local dancers in their birthday suits, and informs you of where they usually dance. A stalker's delight! Fortunately, like Chauncey the Gardener in Being There, we just like to watch, officer. And the price is right for our pockets: free if you stop by one of the many strip clubs in town that have a rack of 'em waiting for you at the door.

BEST STRIP CLUB

The Penthouse Club

A veritable seraglio of heterosexual sin that could turn one of those altar-boy-caressin' Father Feelgoods in the Catholic Church into a red-meat-eatin' lover of the female form, this palatial chichi emporium boasts 160 of the finest dames in the Valley, each of them getting half-nekkid just for you. Penthouse also offers up 10,000 square feet of flashing lights, plush chairs, plasma TV sets, long-ass bars with a strip of ice down the middle so you can set your glass down and keep your drink frosty, three stripper stages, and a high catwalk leading from the gals' dressing room to the main stage. Still want more? Penthouse also features an old-school, four-star menu with everything from surf-and-turf to stuffed pork chops. And if you've got the moola, there's an exclusive, members-only VIP section where you can survey the action on the floor from behind tinted windows. Overall, the classiest strip joint in town, bar none.

BEST PLACE TO SHOW YOUR BOOBS

Coyote Hill Bar and Grill

Tits, bazooms, chi-chis, ta-tas, melons, jugs. No matter what you call them, if you want to be the queen bee of Coyote Hill, you have to be willing to show them off a time or two. At this popular nightspot just three miles north of Glendale Arena, DJ Mikey Mike hosts "Bead Night" every Friday and Saturday, during which he calls for ladies to get wild and win some cash. Guys pay a $5 cover and are handed two fistfuls of beads, while the gals trot around doing whatever they can to scam the most beads for the $50 grand prize. Ladies have been known to go as far as to flash some nipple to beat out the competition. But guys, be creative! You have hundreds of women at your beck and call. Just whippin' out her rack is way too easy. Make her work for it!

BEST WAY FOR STRAIGHT WOMEN TO HOOK UP WITH LESBIANS

Craigslist

The "Women Seeking Women" and "Casual Encounters" personal ads on the Phoenix Craigslist Web site overflow with headlines like "Woman seeking woman for first lesbian encounter"; "Yet another bi-curious twenty year-old"; "dying to have my first experience with a woman"; "looking to learn"; "Bi Curious/Can't get it out of my mind"; and "would like to try something new." The faceless meat markets of the Internet tend to invite misrepresentation and even predators, but luckily Craigslist keeps everything anonymous -- there are no names or e-mail addresses in site posts -- so unless you respond to a post, the poster won't have your e-mail addy. And if you post a personal ad, anybody who responds does so through a generic Craigslist e-mail address, which forwards the message to your real e-mail. So what are a straight girl's chances of dining at the Y with an experienced cook? Judging by posts like "Lesbians seek women," "Looking for cute wild child," and "Looking for HOT femme blondes," chances are pretty good.

BEST DANCE FLOOR

Barcelona

A big, swank Spanish restaurant by evening, by night Barcelona becomes a meat market pulsing with dance tunes and beautiful people on the prowl. Most nights, count on a DJ who knows how to keep the place hopping or a band that does a decent job covering good dance tunes. But unlike lesser clubs, Barcelona never feels ridiculously crowded or too smoky to breathe. The bouncers are great at keeping traffic off the dance floor, so you're not going to get knocked in the ribs when you bust a move.

BEST WAY TO HOOK UP IF YOU'RE HOMELY

Livelinks

Geeky guys of the Valley, take note. Ever seen those licentious late-night commercials for local interactive date lines? Usually they're squeezed between the oh-so-mockable Goldberg & Osborne advertisements, starring hot-to-trot hotties who probably wouldn't let your unphotogenic ass buy them an overpriced martini at Myst. While these intimidating adverts have kept you from calling, the truth is that these beauties are in the minority on Livelinks, the most popular of the local chat services. Populated by plenty of dog-faced desperate housewives and other less-than-lovely ladies, the line's a veritable sexual smorgasbord of females looking for phone fun or an overnight rendezvous. Stay alert for ladies on the lookout for "generous gentlemen" (read: prostitutes) or trannies out to play the crying game (not that there's anything wrong with that). So if you can somehow sweet-talk some honey into slipping you her location, give it a shot, Ace, 'cause he who hesitates, masturb . . . well, you know the rest.

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