When we here at Baltimore's Best-Lubricated Alternative Weekly have an occasion to celebrate or mourn-or we just plain feel thirsty-we look at each other and ask, "Irish?" That's shorthand for the Irish pub, more formally known as Dougherty's Pub, our favorite Mount Vernon haunt. It's spacious, it's friendly, the beer's good (15 brews on tap), the music in the tape deck's eclectic (running from Irish folk tunes to vintage Gang of Four), and the food's cheap. Sure, the two pool tables are often aswarm with swaggering young sharks, so novice players get the bum's rush. Sure, waitress Claudia Berman possesses a sharp tongue, but we suspect she works that sassy shtick mainly for our entertainment. ("You owe me for four straws now," she once sternly admonished one of our more demanding tablemates. You should have seen him quake.) And sure, Dougherty's table service is sometimes a little, ah, relaxed-even when the place is otherwise deserted. But that's part of the charm. It's an unpretentious, relaxed kind of place. You go there after work when you want a real bar meal with your happy-hour drinks. You go there with pals on a Saturday night, and, unlike most urban nightspots, at Dougherty's you can actually sit down and hear the conversation. And as clichéd as it sounds, Dougherty's is a place where, if you're a regular, most everybody knows your name. And your quirks. During one summer lunch, the barkeep set our order down in front of us, then looked embarrassed. "Oh, that's right," he said, "you hate tomatoes, don't you? Sorry about that." Hey, don't be. We're glad you noticed.

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