Vino and laughs

We met a few of our friends at a place in Ballard called Balmar. It was touted to me as a great bar, but after an hour or so it turned rapidly, while we sat upstairs in what had been a relatively peaceful area, into a meat market scene. Hoochies in the bathroom, yacking on cell phones; deafening loud dance mix music over the ubiquitous speakers; eventually we had to get out of there. We tried some different wines, which were mostly good, but the food plates were stingily portioned and not very good, except for some shoestring French fries, which had paprika or cayenne or something red on them, bleu de Basque cheese chunks in amongst them - VERY tasty addition! - and, odd as this sounds, an accompanying delicious "banana catsup," which wasn't pale mashed 'nanners at all, but something tomato-y and sweet. I looked up the cheese - it's French, and made from sheep's milk. Probably expensive, but it doesn't take much of it to satisfy your taste.
We lost one member of the group, and on our way back to our cars stopped in at a pub featuring Irish music. They were very good, but I started feeling sleepy, as did our woman friend, so we all headed home.