Chicagoland Chow

We are now on our way home, possibly stopping in Cleveland to spend the night, maybe just driving through to get home, we're not sure yet.

I also want to apologize for our utter, deplorable lack of pictures. The internet connections of late have been very slow and spotty, but I promise when we get home we'll be updating. We've been taking pix all along, and I don't want to waste them.

I can't even begin to describe how much I love Chicago. I love falling asleep to the sounds of the city. I love going down to the Loop and just walking around, looking at everything. I love going to what is now Macy's, but which will always be Marshall Field's to me and exploring everything. I love the skyline. I love window shopping on the Magnificent Mile, which is one of the last places on earth where you can really window shop. We did all of this, including going to the Chicago Board of Trade (visitors' center) (Tara and I are anxious to use the trading hand signals we learned about when we play our next game of Pit), and taking in the exhibits at the Art Institute of Chicago (free on Thursday nights from 5:00 till 8:00) -- we saw a lot of original masterpieces -- it was a thrill and you couldn't wipe the smile off my face, I was so, well, DELIGHTED!

And I love the food. And I love the fact that I actually was able to go to two Chicago institutions, both just about 6 blocks from our hotel, the very nice Comfort Inn and Suites on E. Ohio Street (2 blocks from the Mag Mile -- I highly recommend it). When we arrived on Wednesday night, we headed to Harry Caray's which was described as a sports bar and steakhouse. I've heard a lot about this place -- even Alan Valoris told me to be sure to go. So Tara and I hopped out of the hotel and hit Harry's for some famous steak. Except that the steak was very, very expensive ($29 - $40). No matter -- I had heard great things about the Chicken Vesuvio. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I knew there was a lot of it, so we ordered the boneless version and asked to split it between us, which they were more than happy to do. A note here: you all know I love my road food, but it was such a treat to sit in a real restaurant and have a white-aproned waiter attend to you in the old style. Our waiter, Jesse, was courteous but not stiff, friendly but not overbearing. It was refreshing, after so many nights of ordering food over a counter. So our chicken came, covered with fresh, fresh peas and with potato wedges. These are not the kind of potato wedges you stick in ketchup. These were softly crisp but soft, almost mashed on the inside. Cut in pieces and dipped in the Vesuvius sauce, they were sublime. And the chicken -- perfectly cooked in a garlic and white wine sauce which was slightly black peppery. It was almost like a piccata, but there was no lemon flavor. That didn't matter -- the sauce was so flavorful. I enjoyed every bite, and we both enjoyed every bite of our salads -- mine the classic Caesar, with real shaved Parmesan, Tara's a house with house balsamic vinaigrette. Our experience was profoundly enjoyable. If that's what they can do with chicken, I can only imagine what they can do with steak. Just around the corner from our hotel was another place I had always wanted to try -- the Weber Grill. They actually cook your food on a Weber backyard grill! They even have a life sized, big ol' Weber grill on the top of the sign! We did not end up going there there the next night, in lieu of going to another Chicago institution, but I'll get there someday. They also offer a breakfast buffet starting at 6:30 a.m. for $14, but we got breakfast free at the hotel (and a very decent breakfast it was!), so we never went for that.

On our walk back to the hotel, we stopped in a little food store to get some fruit, and what did we come across? Something called a "Three Tier Chocolate Cake." I don't know if people in Chicago can count, but I'm telling you, there were a lot more than three tiers in that cake. There were a couple of layers of chocolate cake and a layer of white cake and more, countless layers of chocolate mousse and ganache and whipped cream and heaven knows what else. And it was only $6 for a huge, huge, uh, I guess you would call it a "slice" -- more like a "loaf". So we went back to the hotel and devoured half of that puppy. I will be posting a picture of that.

The next day as we explored the Loop neighborhood, we found ourselves on Michigan Avenue searching for the free Trolley (which we never found, and which, we found out later, didn't run anymore, except to Navy Pier, so it was an imaginary free trolley!). Anyway, I pointed out a restaurant called Noodles and Co., which Tara said she went to when in Utah. She said they had good mac and cheese. I was intrigued (again, it doesn't take much), so instead of waiting in the rain for the next bus, and knowing that the further north we went on Michigan Avenue (the Mag Mile), the higher the prices would be, I said, "I wouldn't mind eating lunch there!" and Tara was happy to comply, because Tara loves her mac and cheese. I may have to bury her with a little black plastic Stouffers dish of the stuff. Once inside, I, of course, changed my mind about the mac and cheese. The deal was that for $7.50, you got your choice of a noodle dish with a sauce a meat and a salad or soup. So it was kind of like a Panera thing, where you ordered your choices from the menu and they put it all together for you. I saw that mushroom stroganoff was one of the noodle choices, and they had a little suggestion that it was "great with braised beef!" And OMH (Oh My Heck!) it was! It was just perfect. Nice hot wide egg noodles, just enough sauce, plenty of very tender, very flavorful beef, and the portion size was perfect. I kept saying to Tara "I should open one of these up in Rochester!" Of course, I also said the same thing about Zupa's and Steak and Shake. Anyway, Tara ate her mac and cheese (which was good, but not gooey cheesy enough for me), with Parmesan crusted cheese, and we both had Caesar salads (in case you couldn't tell, I love Caesar salads). And two diet Cokes. I'm really hopped up on diet Coke this trip.

After shopping on the Mag Mile (the Hershey store, the Ghirardelli store, Crate and Barrel, my only purchase was a $100 sweater for only $10 at Filene's basement) and our trip to the Art Institute (so much fun!), we headed back up north to Gino's East for real Chicago deep dish pizza. This place is, as I men.tioned before, a Chicago Institution, and nearly impossible to get into in the summer months, but I figured we were pretty safe. We got right in, but we had to wait an hour for our pizza -- they warn you about that when they seat you. So Tara and I occupied ourselves with the kid's games and coloring the pictures on the back of the placemats (I did an absolutely fabulous job coloring a character named Pete Za, considering my limited color choices of crayon -- I'm so proud of it I'm putting it up on my fridge at home).

I'm now spoiled for regular pizza -- it's as simple as that. That Gino's pizza was so unbelievable.