Pair, Alibi Room

The hits kept going during Celebration Week as Country Girl and I checked out nearby Pair for happy hour then ambled over to the Alibi Room in Pike's Place with hopes of dancing.

Pair is relatively nearby where we live (most everything is kinda far away out here in the country =D) and also close to a place where Country Girl lived previously though neither of us had been there before.  It strikes me as quintessential neighborhood restaurant in size, decor and layout.   It's relatively small with an entirely open layout.  The seating runs pretty cozy though didn't seem crowded.  The decoration is minimal but long on warm and inviting.  Sitting at the bar, we were at the mercy of the lone bartender working at the time.  She was decidedly not friendly, unfortunately, but was prompt enough in taking our order and making the food and drink show up. Even this wasn't without its hitches as she messed up Country Girl's drink order first time through.  We tried the brisket sliders, mac and cheese, herb and cheese gougères, a green salad and smoked salmon on toast.  Everything was tasty with both the mac and cheese and gougères really standing out.  Despite the chilly reception, we may well check out Pair again for their tasty bites.

Afterwards we made our way down to the Alibi Room to get our boogie on.  En route, we stopped so Country Girl could get a pic with the new Great Wheel. 

Albi Room was another first to us both.  After making our way down into the Market and walking through the doors, we learned it's a restaurant with a a club sorta thing in the basement.  When we arrived, there was a private party in the club for the next 30 odd minutes so we decided to wait it out in the bar area.  I don't recall much about the decor other than the decor, furniture and lighting were all quite dark.  Once the club opened, we headed down with high hopes.  These were quickly dashed as the club is quite the bleak affair.  It's a single, not terribly large concrete walled room with a combo bar/dj station taking up the far end of the room.  The music turned out to be similarly bleak.  DJ Mullet was on the ones and twos putting on a poor display of playing terrible tunes (top-40, perhaps?) coupled with very awkward, ill timed breaks between songs.  It's difficult to say how impressed the crowd was as it was relatively early in the evening and the weren't many people there.  One very redeeming quality Albi Room had was that playing on one of the large screens was some sort of Soul Train compilation.  Seeing the moves, the outfits and a young and especially dapper Don Cornelius was very impressive.  Sadly, this was about the only thing the place had going for it while we were there.  We put on a brave face for a while and had some smiles but it was a relatively short stay for us.  Unlikely the Alibi Room will see a repeat visit.