Chicago is a cool city

We went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and had a great time exploring the area. My college roommate is from there and is super proud of her city so we went several days before the wedding and stayed with her and her fiance. We checked out all the big touristy things and ate our way through the city (Chicago has so many great restaurants!). It also helped our enjoyment of the city that it was 70-something degrees every day we were there! Somehow I don't think it'll be that nice when I go back to Chicago in January for roomie's wedding :)

I've done a few of the tourist things while visiting my friend once before, but Willy hadn't checked out much of that stuff so our first stop was the well-known architecture river cruise offered by the Chicago Architecture Foundation. It's a relaxing way to see some of the great architecture that Chicago is famous for, but even though it always comes highly recommended it's more of a B in my book than an A+.

After the architecture tour we hit Millennium Park, this amazing public park opened in 2004. Saw the famous bean sculpture, which was super cool. The outdoor amphitheater is also awesome; they must have amazing events there. You can't see the sprawling lawn that extends to the right of this picture, but it's slightly sloped for stadium-style seating and it's just great. I also really liked this water feature thing they have. A couple of tall video screens displays the faces of Chicagoans and water spurts from their mouths into a shallow, long, rectangular pool that kids can run through. It's totally fun :)

The next day we hit a couple more big sites, Sears Tower (its new name, Willis Tower, sounds so lame) and Navy Pier. The new glass platforms that extend out from the 103rd floor of the Sears Tower are awesome! I spent a little too much time out on them looking down and got a bit of vertigo :P But it was very worth it. It was funny seeing the people who were afraid to go out on the platforms--including this big dude whose girlfriend was trying to coax him out to check out the view. Navy Pier was also a nice place to just walk around and check out the view of the lake. People knock it as a horrible tourist trap but I liked it, I just didn't buy any overpriced tchotchkes :)

Oh, we even got to see one of our old SF friends while we were in Chicago. Edwin spent a couple of months at his family's place before starting on an adventure living in China. We caught him right in the nick of time, the day before he was scheduled to fly out to China. Had lunch at Portillo's with him (mmm, hot dogs!) and then hung out together at Navy Pier. It was great to see him since it's been about a year since the last time we were able to get together.

The last big thing we hit was one of Chicago's famous comedy clubs, Second City. I had no idea the city was so known for this, but some big comedians came out of Second City, like Tina Fey, Stephen Colbert, Dan Castellaneta, John Candy, Dan Akroyd, Jim Belushi, and more. The show we saw was called Studs Terkel's Not Working. The first half was pretty funny, the second half was pretty lame. All in all, a good time.

Now for the eats...

Alinea: The big splurge meal. This is a very high-end restaurant with a tasting menu (12 courses) and a tour menu (25 courses). It has a completely non-descript big, gray door for an entrance and once inside you walk down a narrow, dimly lit hallway. Right when you get to the end and aren't sure if you're hitting a dead end or if there's a sharp turn to the right, a door on your left magically slides open and the hostess greets you. It's much larger inside than it looked from the street and the decor was classy and upscale without being too stuffy. The same could be said of the staff. There was one server
("waiter" doesn't seem like the right word for someone

who's wearing a suit that undoubtedly cost multiples of what I gave as a wedding gift to the couple we were in town for) who was a bit stiffer than the others, but in general everyone was very friendly and willing to chat and joke with us. There was a whole team of people involved in presenting the food, explaining how to eat it, cleaning up between courses, etc. so we didn't have just one server.

The dinner itself was certainly an experience, though I'm not sure molecular gastronomy (re: food with super fancy garnishes and presentation) is totally my cup of tea. I did appreciate the intense flavors and the sudden bursts and changes of tastes in my mouth, but some of the dishes came off as a bit salty to me (e.g. the truffle ravioli--which they gave us twice for some reason! Willy had joked that he ate his so fast that he thought it was actually missing and he needed another, and they actually brought us both another one!) That said, wagyu beef--a.ma.zing. It might as well have melted in my mouth, and I would definitely have taken another serving of that instead of the truffle ravioli! And you see that little black lopsided thing under the picture of the wagyu beef? Well it was a prop that went with that particular dish. They wanted to bring the grill experience to the dining room so since they don't cook the beef tableside they fill that little topsy-turvy contraption with some kind of essence of the beef, some dry ice, and then fill it with water when they serve you the dish so that smoke covers your table and the smell of grilled beef surrounds you while you eat. Those crazy fancy restaurants with their crazy fancy props! The last dish pictured is described on the menu as scallop, shellfish, and honeydew, the latter of which if memory serves was the foam portion of the dish. It was excellent.

I was sooooo stuffed at the end of the twelve courses that I have no idea how I'd ever do the 25-course tour. A couple of the servers kept insisting it was totally do-able, but I'm not convinced. Plus at $225 I think I'll wait to go to French Laundry. I will say that the tasting menu was probably priced pretty accurately at $145, but I've decided I'm more of a traditional cooking technique kinda gal and I'd go back to Blue Ginger's $85 tasting menu over this. Don't regret trying it one bit though.

Art of Pizza: One of my online resources recommended this place for its pizza over the Big Three usually recommended in Chi-town, those being Lou Malnatti's, Giordano's, and Gino's East. The stuffed (i.e. super deep dish) veggie pizza I got was delicious. I only managed to eat one slice, which is very unusual for me and my rather large appetite. Next time I'll have to try one of the other places to compare.

Lou Mitchell's: Went to this diner for breakfast based on another online rec. It's a well-known institution in Chicago and I guess lines get pretty long on the weekends (though probably not as long as the line at Hot Doug's--holy crap that was crazy. More on that later). While you're waiting you get a fresh-made donut hole that's very yummy and not too sweet, and the ladies also get a trick-or-treat-sized box of Milk Duds :) Since we went on a Thursday morning we didn't wait at all. Willy's pancakes and my french toast were both very good, and they make a bunch of different baked goods fresh daily that you can take home with you (though some of them were pretty pricey).

Wishbone: Willy had been to this place years and years ago when he had been through Chicago and wanted to go back again for these corncakes (corn pancakes) he remembered. I have to say, they were really good and better than what we had at Lou Mitchell's.

Phoenix Restaurant (dim sum): Not as good as dim sum in Boston or the bay area, but decent overall. On weekdays they offer a picture menu that you can order off of instead of pushing carts around, which probably helps non-Chinese diners. I'm sure they do this because of the lower volume of diners on weekdays so they can cook to order instead of risking putting a bunch of stuff out on carts that might or might not get picked up.

The only place I wanted to go to that we didn't squeeze in was Frontera Grill. The chef there, Rick Bayless, just won Top Chef Masters and his cuisine is upscale Mexican. Willy really likes Mexican food and we haven't found great options for that in Boston. Unfortunately, I didn't account for needing reservations even for lunch so we didn't get in. He also has a slightly higher end restaurant attached to Frontera called Topolobampo that I really want to try too, but figured with Alinea on the agenda I better not spend all our money eating :) Frontera does have a fast casual place in the food court of the old Marshall Field's (now Macy's) downtown so Willy did at least get to try that and he gave it a thumbs up.

A quick note on the wedding we were actually in town for: we were honored to be invited to the small, 50ish-guest event of my college friend and his now wife. It was really nice to attend a smaller wedding for once. I only wish we hadn't gotten lost and missed the ceremony itself :( We gave ourselves an hour to get to the venue which should have been only 25 mins. away but we overshot a turn and spent too much time getting back on track. *sigh* totally embarrassing, but at least we got to spend some time with the couple at the reception and the afterparty. Congrats, Ed & Min Jung!

Happy 4th Anniversary to Us!

I'm a little late in posting this since our anniversary was last Friday 5/29, but we were away in Bar Harbor, ME celebrating. This was on Sand Beach in Acadia National Park. We wanted to do more hiking and exploring of the park, but unfortunately it rained most of the time we were there. Can't complain too much though; we had good food (I ate lobster four days in a row), got upgraded to the honeymoon suite of the B&B we stayed at, and had a great time just being together. It's amazing how quickly four years have gone by (and eight years since we met). Time really does fly when you're having fun!

Cape Cod anniversary trip

A couple of weekends ago IM and GM came to town a week before my and IM's college reunion. GM had never spent much time in Boston before so IM wanted to show him around. We all went down to the Cape together for a chill weekend. IM shot this very cool pic of three of us--neat, huh?

IM also found us a great little B&B called
Cobblestone Cottage. The room we stayed in was super comfy with a newly updated bathroom en suite. We were the only people there that weekend so it was like having a little hotel all to ourselves. I'd definitely go back there and highly recommend it. Bev's bottomless cookie jar was a big plus :)

We did a lot while we were there, considering we didn't do a lick of activity planning before heading down there. We arrived late Friday afternoon and just wandered down to the nearest beach for a look-see; it wasn't really swimming weather. Splurged on a yummy dinner at Pisces. Instead of appetizers we basically got a couple of entrees to share amongst the four of us. Mmm, mmm good.

Saturday we did a great bike ride on the Rail Trail--a nice, flat, easy ride. The hubby says we rode something like 16 miles round trip. I haven't been on a bike in probably 7 years so that was a big deal for me. We barely missed the rain that started flowing just before we got back to the bike shop. After the ride I somehow coerced everyone into doing a little bit of rock climbing at a local gym (heehee).

On Sunday we fulfilled GM's need to see the Kennedy compound with a little boat trip out of Hyannis. I actually skipped that tour because of my tendency to get seasick and instead went shopping on the main drag. We made sure to get back over the bridge at a decent hour to avoid the traffic and explored Plymouth a bit. Plymouth Rock was unfortunately not open for viewing as they were renovating the structure that's built over it. The trip ended with a delicious meal at Isaac's in Plymouth. Don't let their 1980s, gold-trimmed, ugly carpet decor fool you--the seafood is delicious!

Vail, baby

(View from Eagle's Nest Ridge run at Vail)

Last month we went on our week-long, kind-of-annual snowboarding trip with Ninja Z, Ninja S & hubby, and about a half dozen other friends who joined us for a couple of days here and there. It was a total blast, though I was sore for pretty much the entire trip because I am the weak snowboarding link amongst the group. Bailed pretty hard probably 1/2 a dozen times, had a really sore lower back for a couple of days and a big, fat, black & blue bruise on my butt, but it was worth it :) Good times, good times....

Here's a pic from the night we lost the car in a local parking lot. Picture this: DA, the guy looking up and to his right, screaming at us, "Are you F*!&ing kidding me?! Four of you and none of you knows where you parked the car?!" JL, the guy with the loser sign, is agreeing with him, all the while conveniently forgetting that he was sitting in the front seat of said car while we were parking. Not seen in the pic is the fact that SC was laughing so hard she was literally bent over, legs crossed, trying not to pee her pants. Finally we had to call WC, who answered the phone, "Hi...can't find the car?" The boy is psychic! He knows me waaaaaaay too well :P

DA is also the guy who took some awesome videos of each of us snowboarding. It was so cool! He is probably the best boarder of the bunch of us and he had his camera with the video function and he'd just chase us down the mountain, circle around us, and even film while riding backwards. So now we can all see what we look like when we ride--pretty neat stuff.

We got the whole gamut of weather while we were there. Really sunny, warm days with 50-degree temps, and really cold, windy days with very low double-digit temps. We also got a big snow day that created giant snowballs:

I think next year we're going to try to hit Park City, UT. Ninja Z really just wants to go back to Whistler, but we kinda want to check out this one last major resort before doing that. If Park City isn't good though, it's pretty much Whistler for us from here on out. Vail was pretty good in terms of snow but it felt more like a skier's mountain because there were a lot of long flats to get to different parts of the mountain and into some of the bowls. The good news was that a lot of the flats must have had just the tiniest bit of downhill slope because it wasn't too bad as far as traverses go. Either that or I'm getting better on my board ;)

So many updates...

Our S.F Trip
The bad news is that we had to postpone our planned trip to Vail this year because the friends who were going with us had some things come up and couldn't make the trip anymore. The good news is we spent a week in the bay area recently boarding with said friends in Tahoe instead (tough life, I know :P). We boarded for three days straight at Kirkwood, Heavenly, then Sierra.


We had a fantastic time. The first day at Kirkwood was a little icy, but well-groomed so it was still pretty good. That night it dumped several feet of fresh powder and continued to snow all day. For a beginner like me, it was a bit too much of a good thing as the deep powder along with the snowy conditions made it a little difficult to do any carving. In fact, we ended up hiking a good portion of the day because our friend S's board didn't have enough wax on it and even on a solid downslope she wasn't moving more than a few inches in the slightly wet snow. Between hiking back down to the shop and digging out of huge drifts all day, I got more of a workout getting out of trouble than actually boarding :P

The last day at Sierra though was epic. Just the right amount of powder, sunny conditions, relatively short lines--it was great! And I did improve my carving skills a bit, so all in all we ended the trip on a very high note.

So what do you do after spending three days straight snowboarding? Go rock climbing the next day and then play volleyball two days in a row after that, of course! :) Amazingly, our bodies held out; no injuries, no major pains. We had an absolutely fantastic time on our trip, all due to seeing and spending time with all our friends out there. Special thanks to S, R, and their dog Rocky for hosting us in their lovely home all week. Can't wait to see you all again in July when we're out for the first wedding this season!

Big Weekend Purchase #1
Since we've been back, we've been pretty busy. We've been missing a few big furniture items even after six months of (painful, tedious, boring) shopping, one of which is an entertainment unit for the TV and stereo components. Right now the nice new TV is sitting on our old coffee table and the stereo components on a $10 BB&B nightstand. This weekend though we finally decided on a wall unit that fits all our various technologies and matches the furniture we already have. Phew.... That was pretty painful. It should be here next week. Then we just need to get another chair or two for more seating and the living room will be finis!

Then there's Big Weekend Purchase #2. After even more painful shopping, today we finally got our hands on the car we've been shopping for since November. We ended up with a Certified Used 2005 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro. I kind of still can't believe it. My '98 Civic is going to my sisters so they can finally have a car and I'll be picking this baby up in a week or so. On a side note, Audi has a pretty amazing Certified program compared to the others we looked at: 2 additional years or 50,000 miles on top of the original 4 years/50,000 miles. So my '05 car has slightly more coverage than a brand new '07 would. That's pretty cool.

So now, basically, we have no money left :P Guess we'll be sitting at home enjoying our TV for entertainment for a while!

S.F. trip recap

Brrr...it's starting to get pretty chilly around here, but mostly early in the morning and at night. During the day it's still been hitting the 60s for the most part, which is pretty great for New England. It's too bad I didn't get any pictures of the fall leaves before the season passed; they were gorgeous and it was great to see it all in person for the first time in years.

The weather was surprisingly gorgeous in S.F. this weekend. I was expecting rain, fog, and chills since it's November, but instead temps were in the 70s and R. & J. could have had their wedding outdoors!

The weekend pretty much revolved around food, and lots of it. As soon as I arrived in San Jose, W. and I headed over to meet our friends for dinner at our favorite bay area Korean restaurant, Korea House in Santa Clara. There were nearly 30 of us at dinner and the waitstaff were real troopers about dealing with our huge group. They even gave us several free beers since we ordered so much food. When I saw the spread on the table I thought we'd spent a small fortune, but somehow the bill worked out to only $20/person. Go figure, guess the boys weren't pulling their weight that night! Mmmm...kalbi....

After getting some much-needed sleep and grabbing a dim sum brunch with some other friends, we hit R. & J.'s wedding. They chose a really unique venue, Broadway Studios, which is a performance space with a stage and a big dance floor. You can rent it out for events, but I don't think they usually do weddings there. It's right over one of our favorite clubs from our partying days, Velvet Lounge :) R. did a great job decorating it and other than being a little crowded during the cocktail hour, it was a great space. We had a ton of fun catching up with old friends over dinner (except for the part when M. almost made me cry by saying how much our friends miss us and telling us to move back). Thanks for a great party, R. & J., and congrats again!

On Sunday we got a chance to see S. & R.'s new house in San Mateo. We're so excited for them and their purchase together. It's a fixer-upper, but he's got the technical/mechanical skills and she's got the creative talent to turn it into a great home. I can't wait to visit it again the next time we're out ther, which should be in July for L. and R.'s wedding (good thing we have all these weddings as an excuse to go back to the bay area!). Actually, I take that back; while we were out there W. already planned his Tahoe time for two weekends in March so I guess we'll be back then :)

I closed out my trip with, yes, another big meal. We hit the Sunday all-you-can-eat sushi buffet at Satsuma and it was even better than I remember it. R. liked it so much he started crying--heehee! Gotta lay off that wasabi a bit. W. dropped me off at the airport afterwards and then went on to play volleyball with some more friends before getting on his separate flight home the next day.

The red eye home was as painful as ever, but well worth it for a fun weekend catching up with friends. I can't wait to do it again.