It was the ideal way to end a Thursday: drinks at the Athenian Inn inside Pike Place Market, knocking back tall beers in frosted glasses alongside the fishmongers and friends while watching the sun go down across the water. The place has been open for more than a hundred years, and has earned every wrinkle, every crack, every warp and the full length of its spotty reputation for good drinks, decent food and territorial regulars. Best view yet in a city full of great ones. And my glass was so cold that it froze the head on my draft.Nijo Sushi Bar has got a view of precisely nothing (back alley, street scenes, lots of parked delivery vans), but the vistas inside were just fine. Pretty girls, flashing knives, fresh fish behind the glass and, at happy hour, a collection of all the neighborhood beautiful people. The sake list is impressive (everything from Jun-Mai Harushika at a hundred bucks a bottle to Asian Pear sake and bottles of Nigori Pearl), but because I am a savage, I drank Corona while putting away a double order of the dancing shrimp (five bucks a pop and addictive as hell) and enough fish to take the edge off my hunger.Oddly, I didn’t love the sashimi. Cut a bit thick for me. But the maki rolls were excellent–the line here leaning a bit more toward the nouvelle in their prep and presentation, a little less toward the traditional.More drinks at the Zig Zag Cafe (1501 Western Avenue), and I loved it there–huddled up at the far end of the bar, drinking rye because J.D. Salinger had just cashed in his chips and it felt like the right thing to do. I started with straight whiskey (Jameson Redbreast 12 year, which I haven’t seen on a whiskey list in a long time, served neat because anything else would’ve been an insult), then transitioned to Armistice cocktails–ancient classics made with rye, dry vermouth, green chartreuse and bitters. The bar started busy and then ran fast toward crushing, but the tenders were veterans, pros who never showed a drop of sweat and could mix a Tivoli or a one-legged duck without even looking (or running for their Bartender’s Bibles).And after that, it was shot-and-a-beer time out in the neighborhoods–running down to Georgetown to hit Slim’s Last Chance (5606 1st Avenue South) because I’d heard it was a proper dive and I was in a divey frame of mind. Going one-for-one with bottles of Tecate and shots of John Power’s Irish was the proper method here, bellied up to the bar, getting all the love I need from the bartendress who served fast, poured high and with minimum bullshit. The juke was well-stocked with the greatest hits of my misspent youth and cranked loud enough to sterilize dogs at 50 yards. It made conversation difficult, but that was okay. The only talking I cared to do was with the stranger on the stool next to me. And from him, all I wanted to know was how he got his weird white-man afro and muttonchop sideburns so poofy.For those of you living here in exile from more chile-centric climes, Slim’s has something else going for it, too: a menu that doesn’t suck at all. It’s strange, definitely heavy on the chili-with-an-i (as opposed to chile-with-an-e), but does have a quote/unquote New Mexico-style verde made of green chiles, tomatillos and tender hunks of pork. For a bit of a Southeast/Southwest fusion kick, you can get it served over a bowl of white cheddar grits (which is how I had mine), and I cleaned the bowl despite the fact that it was served with a spoon rather than a tortilla and exists far beyond the northern limit of where green chile is supposed to be served. Neither the most authentic or the best imitator I’ve ever tasted, it was still a fine cushion against the beers and whiskies I was putting away, and when I left the place (long after dark but still mostly steady on my feet), it was the green chile and grits I planned on coming back for.