The Rest of the Trip

I already covered the Ferris wheel, so here's a summary of the other non-food related things we did in Chicago.

Learned (sorta) to take the El. It doesn't work the same way as MTA. It's actually much simpler, but we still managed to take the wrong train a couple of times. My dad had some minor hissy fits, but it all worked out fine.

Went to Shedd Aquarium and saw a super corny show with a sea lion, belugas, dolphins, penguins, and (weirdly) some hawks. One of the hawks went AWOL and ended up sulking atop one of the trees surrounding the giant pool. Managed to be snarky to the dude talking about Alaskan otters. Those things are beyond adorable, BTW. Like fat, snub-nosed ferrets. Also saw a balance-impaired sea turtle named Nickle. Unfortunately, we went late in the day and didn't have time to cover the whole place. Oh, I almost forgot about the 4-D movie experience we had. It was mostly irritating as they squirted water in your face and poked you in the back. Good for the kiddies, I suppose.

Did a fair amount of browsing along the Magnificent Mile, walked the Navy Pier and along Lake Shore Drive. Took an architectural boat tour, in the rain, and learned that there are no private use buildings along Chicago's waterfront. Oh, and Mies van der Rohe was very fond of linear buildings. We wanted to do the Segway tour, but the weather was against us. Saturday night we went to the observation deck of the Hancock bldg and did the audio tour. And, it a brilliant bit of accidental awesomeness, we were up there when they did the fireworks at Navy Pier. It was a nice way to cap the trip off.

Chicago is a nice city. More friendly than Philly and cleaner than NYC. The streets smell like chocolate and the subway smelled like oranges - really. Very fond of revolving doors there. There's a fair amount of it that's "underground". You could be walking down the street when it would abruptly end, and you would have to seek out a stairwell and go subterranean. I definitely suggest you bring a raincoat and a hat because they aren't kidding about that Windy City thing. Also, there's no smoking within 15 feet of public buildings. Just an FYI.

Oh, and I was entirely wrong about the flight time - it's about an hour and a half. I got an aisle seat both ways, and got ass rubbed all over my arm and shoulder. People have very little sense of space. I also got whapped in the noggin by a dude waiting to deplane. He apologized, I let it go.

Heh, this has nothing to do with Chicago, but the driver who got us at the Philly airport looked a bit like a shorter Tahmoh Penikett and had a Russian accent. I wanted to bite him.

One Last Chicago Food Post

I'm sure everyone is rather bored with foodie talk, so I'm going to wrap it up.

Friday dinner was at a vegetarian place called the Green Zebra. I was sad that the decor did not reflect the name at all. Mostly bamboo and cream colored walls. Nice subdued lighting and a not intolerable noise level. Started off with a cocktail called "tea blossom". Tea-infused vodka, lemony junk - very tasty. The deal at the Zebra is you order several small plates. My dad went with the chef's tasting menu, 4 plates plus dessert. My mom and I went ala carte with 4 plates each. My dad asked our server, Ichabod (not really, but he had that look), for wine recommendations, and Ichabod said he could do a wine tasting with each course. We went for that option.

I'm not going to do a plate-by-plate breakdown, but here are the highlights. Parsnip and leek soup - divine. Smooth, creamy, awesome. My dad's housemade fusilli managed to suggest italian sausage without a speck of meat. My mom and I had a apple and onion tart with camembert that could have used more cheese (duh), but was still veryvery good. Dessert was a cheese plate with a 12-year old cheddar that made me all swoony...and more wine. I was not quite sodden when we left, but I was extraordinarily glad we weren't walking back to the hotel.

And lest you think I forgot, we did experience the Chicago hot dog. We went to Portillo's Saturday night, and I know there are people out there who would sneer at our choice, but it was a) convenient and b) fairly well recommended. The set-up is a wee bit confusing but the place wasn't crowded so we could do the clueless toursit bit without getting shit on. After reading about Chicago dog for weeks, I was more than ready for the experience. While I noticed a lack of celery salt, it was overall pretty damn good. Nice meaty hotdog and somehow all the toppings work together. It is a bit difficult to eat a hot dog with tomato, relish, a pickle spear, onions, sport peppers, and mustard on it, but I acquitted myself, if I do say so. Which I do. Obviously.

Chicago is a good eatin' town. I'm glad we walked a lot, or I would have needed and extra seat for the flight home. Which I could have used anyway, but that's the next post. Damn, I could eat another dog right now.

The Blackbird Experience

If you are looking for an unbearably hip, "we want to be west coast", allow me to chop up your endive salad type of place - go to Blackbird.

The place was packed. The space is narrow and austere; nothing at all on the walls besides paint. There is a banquette along one wall with far too many tables lined up along it. And they were full. There is a short bar directly to your right when you come in with about 15 people behind it. Blackbird doesn't lack in the server/foodrunner/random people all over the place department.

The kitchen is partially visible. Our table was right next to it, and I got a view of the chefs - mostly from the chin up. My dad remarked that there must be some sort of requirement that the chefs have beards and wear glasses. And, as I said, the place was packed, but I didn't witness any meltdowns. So even if they were in the weeds, they weren't advertising it.

The drinks and wine menu wasn't especially extensive. My dad had a whisky souresque drink that was NOT pink. My mom and I drank sauvignon blanc. More about my mom and her wine in a moment. First, about the chopping of the endive salad.

My dad and I both started with the endive salad: endive, pancetta, dijon, poached egg, potato basket. It came out with the lettuces and everything arranged in a wicker-looking potato ring. The server then hacks it to pieces in front of you. I don't know why they feel that the servers are less likely to fling bits of egg and vegetation all over, because my guy managed to get potato in my lap and endive went squirting off the plate. It wasn't a huge mess, but it definitely wasn't any neater than I could have done. My mom declined an appetizer and had a second glass of wine.

There was quite a lag between appetizers and entrees, about 25 minutes. Presentation was a bit precious. My dad's mushroom schnitzel was clustered to one side of the large round plate with the veg. The rest of the plate was artfully swirled with some creamy honey sauce. My mom got a whopping 2 diver scallops with snow peas and sunchoke. Sunchoke has been on lots of menus here in Chicago. Must be the trendy ingredient du jour. I got rack of lamb with tomatoes and melrose peppers. It was beautifully cooked and the veg was super tasty. My mom gave my dad at least 3/4 of a scallop, which left her with 1 1/4. Mind you, she was on glass 3. That's right kids, Mom was tipsy. Very little protein, about 4 bites of bread, and some veg were not equal to the challenge of absorbing 3 glasses of wine. She wasn't embarrassing or anything, but she was a bit unsteady on her feet.

We all passed on dessert and stuck with coffee and tea. I had an omg delicious rooibos tea. I only wish I could have drank all of it, but by the time I got through a cup, it had brewed too long and wasn't as good. Plus we still had to take 2 different trains to get back to the hotel.

I'm not sorry we went to Blackbird, but I wouldn't go back. Too many people for that size space, menu was a bit too, and for the number of service people flitting around, I didn't feel especially well cared for. Don't get me wrong, they were nice, and aside from the potato in the lap, perfectly competent. I'm sure they get great whacks of cash at the end of the night and I can only hope the place stays trendy so they can pay their rent.

Eating in Chicago

That dark picture over there is Sepia, the restaurant we ate at last night. Despite being about 8 minutes late for our reservation, we still had to wait a bit for the table. We went to the small lounge/bar area. My mom ordered some drink with ginger beer in it, and my dad got a pink concoction with gin in it somewhere. I stuck with a glass of Syrah.

After about 10 min, our table was ready and we got seated in a nice cozy little corner. we were eating fairly late (8:30) but the noise level was still pretty high. Sepia is obviously a fairly "hip" place. The cuisine is, well, I guess gourmet Bavarian about covers it. For starters, we had salad (me), housemade sausage with lentils (Dad), and white bean soup with pork (Mom). The lentils were cooked with bacon and the soup had a pile of shaved marrow on it. Verrrrry rich. The bread was multi-grain rolls that had an unfortunate resemblance to poos. Tasted fine.

For the main course, we had short ribs with red cabbage and spatzle (me), flat iron steak with bone marrow beignets (Dad), and a beautiful pork chop with arugula and peaches (Mom). After sharing tastes, we agreed that I had made the best choice, but that bone marrow beignets are awesome. My mom was unable to finish off her chop (it was massive).

Aside from the noise level, which did drop as it got later, my biggest complaint would be the saltiness of the food. Yes, I know I'm Ms Anti-salt, but both my parents agreed. Otherwise, the service was super friendly and efficient and I would recommend Sepia to anyone with a slightly adventurous palate.

Lunch today was Topolobampo, one of Rick Bayless's restaurants. It shares a (noisy) bar with Frontera Grill, Bayless's other restaurant. The cuisine is Mexican/South American.

Starters: Tortilla soup with chicken, housemade sour cream and cheese for me and mom, the half-size Grand plate for my dad. The Grand plate came with half-a-dozen oysters and 2 different ceviches. One was tuna and apricot, the other was Hawaiian sunfish. Both were delicious. The soup was perfect as the nice weather of Wednesday abandoned us and it was rainy and gray and windy. Y'know, Chicago.

That dish over to the left is the seafood and black rice dish my mom ordered for her entree. I didn't have any, but she ate every last scrap, so I would assume it was full of yum. My dad got a potato dish with three different types of taters; yukon, fingerling, and purple. The was smoked and mashed, crunchy chips, and tiny purple potatoes scattered around. It was served with a nice roasted tomato sauce and a creamy cheesy sauce. I had Chichurron de Queso, which is basically a giant fried cheese wafer that was served with a mixed greens salad (tasty lime-serrano dressing) and chicken, avocado, and some bit that I'm fairly certain were peppers. Here a picture of my meal, with my dad's potatoes in the background:

I also had agua de jamaica, which was a beautiful magenta color and was sweetly fruity with a good tea taste to it. My dad had another pink concoction, this time with hibiscus. The server said it was rust-colored. I would have tipped extra just for that.

Tonight is dinner at Blackbird, so I'm gonna go get dressed. If I'm not stuffed into stuperousness, I'll write about it tonight.