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Picture this: It’s Friday night and your buddies have bailed. What to do when the weekend is upon you and you’ve got no plans? Our nightlife guru Sarah Preston recommends Tumans (2159 W. Chicago Ave.) in Ukrainian Village. Despite a facelift a few years back, this one-time grimiest of dives still offers dirt-cheap beer and a true Chicago icon, DJ Jesse De La Peña, on the turntables a couple of times each month. We visited the cozy corner tavern last Friday; check out photos…

The Best of Today . . .
From a hole in Vegas to a microscopic bar in our very own backyard, Playboy.com has compiled a list of the top ten American dives. As Steve Dollar writes in the article, "Nothing satisfies man’s tortured soul and restless craving for misadventure quite like the dive bar." We couldn’t agree more.

If you thought Twisted Spoke was wild, get a load of The Zoo (3369 N. Clark St.). Wrigleyville’s one-time biker bar (and, later, Brody’s on Clark) has been reborn as a nightspot that plays to the party animals. We spotted folks congregating at the watering hole on Saturday night. And you know what they say—“When in Wrigleyville”—so we ambled down the block to check out Red Ivy.

One of the perks of being a nightlife columnist is occasionally getting asked to help judge bartending competitions. This past Monday I sat on a panel for the Woodford Reserve Ultimate Manhattan Competition, hosted by Chicago Sport and Social Club at Angels & Kings. Along with four other judges—including Mike Miller of Delilah’s and Bottom Lounge, and last year’s winner, Paul Stern of Suite Lounge—I sampled eight different Manhattans made by eight local drink slingers and judged the results based on presentation, creativity, and taste…