The distinctive smell of fish and funk music is in the air - has the P-town crew headed to the docks to perform their latest review? Hardly. At 39th & Market Streets exists O'Hara's Fish House.

The place is actually half-restaurant/half-bar in the middle of University City. You enter O'Hara's in the corner of the building, the bar is off to your left & the restaurant extends deep to the right.

The bar itself is a large maple wood structure, rectangular in shape. It seats about 30 swilling patrons. The drafts honored at O'Hara's include Michael Shea's, Coors, Yuengling, Guinness, Bass & Heineken. TV's are mounted around the bar to keep you occupied when there isn't a live act performing.

On the weekend nights, you're likely to encounter an up-and-coming funk band that would make even the most ardent Bootsie Collins fan tap his/her foot. If you like your live music in an intimate setting, the band gets their "groove on" a mere foot or two from the bar. If the singer decides to step-off from the band & serenade a hot babe, you'd better "hold it" because you won't make it past him & the bar.

With the crowd primarily populated by 30ish African Americans, Nutty & The Dog found it odd that we were the only white-folks in the house. We had just exited Cavanaugh's, down the street, where whitey-white college kids are grooving to the latest Puff Daddy re-mix and the O'Hara's crowd is kicked back, enjoying the funk. Go figure.

As mentioned, down 39th Street are 2 other Irish pubs if you get tired of the fish house funk of O'Hara's: Cavanaugh's & the Blarney Stone. Sure they're college hang-outs, but what the heck, you are in University City.

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