I spent my weekend in Dublin at a hotel right off The Liffey in the Temple Bar district. Temple Bar is great but it's also Times Square without the neon Disney signs. Plenty of obnoxious tourists from all over pretending they are surrounded by Irish when in fact they are only surrounded by each other.

It took my friend and I only three hours (a beef stew and an unpacking's worth of time) to realize we wanted our "watering holes" to be filled with a few less "...holes" (you get the point). So we took a stroll west looking for a good craic as the Irish say and then set out south past St. Patrick's Cathedral until we stumbled upon the right spot: Fallons. This is a bar for the Irish. No tourists except us (I actually felt a tad guilty over it) but some of the best people I met on my trip. No, THE best. There was the bartender David, the owner Aileen, the hooligan Micky, Tom the teacher, and best of all Peter the bookie.

Of course this sounds like a bad BBC sitcom. That's what makes it so great. It's real life. If you are lucky enough to hit the pub when Tom and Peter are inside be sure to mention the "odd couple" from Brooklyn. Peter looks a bit like Inspector Clouseau and they both weave stories all night long. I may have paid for 3 drinks the whole night and may I strongly recommend the Red Breast whisky straight up or on the rocks. You might be able to find it in New York (good luck) but in Dublin it's pretty standard.

The space is very simple and can get crowded at the right times. Drinks are standard prices, which in Dublin means cheap. There are some free nibbles, a television that stays mostly turned off and if you are one the lucky ones you'll stay on after hours for a few more quite sips. I went back a couple of days later for The World Cup finals and it was packed to the brim. A day prior I met some Americans at the Jameson's distillery and convinced them to join. At the end of the night they came and thanked us for the suggestion. You will too.