There are happy hours that function as post-work gatherings, fueled by discounted pitchers of beer, buckets of chicken wings, sliders and the sort of commiserating that can only happen between colleagues. If the beer is cold and the chicken wings properly sluiced in hot sauce and ranch dressing, this happy hour can be the happiest of hours.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t until I was seated at the bar of Josiah Citrin\u2019s Citrin in Santa Monica that I understood a happy hour\u2019s full potential. Here, happy hour is known as Glass Off, a 90-minute stretch of food and drink specials at the bar. Instead of a truncated list of fried foods intended to coat your stomach while you sip on discounted wine, you\u2019ll find tasting-size portions of some of Citrin and fellow chef-partner Ken Takayama\u2019s signature dishes.<\/p>\n
Those spot prawns with young turnip and green tomato finished with a nori sabayon that normally cost $52 an order? You can enjoy a smaller portion at the bar for $22. The $49 risotto studded with Dungeness crab, artichoke and peas with aged Parmesan and Meyer lemon? During Glass Off, you can taste a portion of it for $24.<\/p>\n
At the following restaurants, happy hour is designed to give diners a glimpse at a kitchen or bar\u2019s full potential, at a more accessible price point. It\u2019s not simply about ordering as many discounted drinks as possible during a limited window. That\u2019s the sort of thinking that prompted the state of Massachusetts to ban happy hours in 1984. It\u2019s prohibited in six other states, and allowed but highly regulated in a handful of others. <\/p>\n
In the great state of California, happy hours abound. Just make sure you indulge responsibly. <\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a list of my current favorite happy hours. Save me a seat at the bar, will you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are happy hours that function as post-work gatherings, fueled by discounted pitchers of beer, buckets of chicken…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":174082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[99155,19958,7738,1582,276,99152,63943,990,99150,99151,99148,99149,2961,224,5337,37573,99154,99153,290,31493],"class_list":{"0":"post-174081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-aged-parmesan","9":"tag-bar","10":"tag-beer","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-drink-special","14":"tag-fine-dining","15":"tag-food","16":"tag-full-potential","17":"tag-glass-off","18":"tag-happy-hour-price","19":"tag-josiah-citrin","20":"tag-la","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-slider","24":"tag-small-portion","25":"tag-sort","26":"tag-state","27":"tag-wing"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115088921336443617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}