Chicago

Back in April, I took a work trip with a friend from work. She seemed happy to put herself in my hands for food and, though I didn't do much advance planning or research, we had a reasonably good time foodwise.

We arrived late for lunch and headed out from the hotel to hear where our office was. We thought it would be easy to find lunch, but it really wasn't. After finally asking for help in a random organic store, we were directed to Pastoral (pastoralartisan.com) I chose the Grant Park Grinder comprised of hand-made Finnochiona, Mortadella & Coppa, fresh mozzarella, piparras, tomatoes, red wine vinaigrette and field greens. It was quite tasty..

For dinner, we went to Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill... without a reservation. We ended up waiting about two and a half hours. The staff explained that this was partially because they had just launched a new menu that night and it always resulted in a slow down. My co-worker was very patient and nice about it. Especially since we had no idea where else to go anyway. I had two of these cocktails: Tropical. Fresh guava-infused Cazadores blanco tequila, pineapple, prickly pear, lime, and Creme de Violette.

For an appetizer, I got the tropical tuna cocktail. Apparently it was a tropical kind of night. Sashimi-grade Hawaiian bigeye tuna, tomatillo guacamole, honey Manila mango salsa. This was an excellent dish. It was probably the best thing I put into my mouth the whole time.

Digging deep into the cocktail revealed all the deliciousness inside. Yum.

For my main, duck with pasilla-huitlacoche sauce. I actually got this specifically because I wanted to try huitlacoche again. I put it together into tacos. It was divine. Not sure about the corn torta though. That was a little weird. And spicy.

The next day, I put myself into the hands of my Chicago office team for lunch suggestions. We ended up going to an underground cafeteria near the office. Most of the team was very excited that Wow Bao had opened. I didn't know what it was, but food excitement is contagious. I started off with these pork and cabbage dumplings, five for $3.99. Pretty tasty.

I had to try a bao. I got this bbq pork bao, $1.59. Not bad for fast food.

Here's what the bao looked like on the inside.

And then, I think I got these spicy peanut noodles. So overall, I remember that this lunch takeout was something like $8. I was full and I was happy. Damn, I wish there was one of these near my office. Also, I like the free soda at the ThoughtWorks office. Yum, orange soda.

For dinner, they took us to Greektown. I ordered some kind of combo plate. It was not great. I am sad.

After the sad dinner, someone at work took us to the Violet Hour. I was very excited so I pushed us towards it even though a lot of other people didn't really seem keen on going. The ambiance was a little snooty, I thought. I ordered a blood and sand, which Josh later chastised me for because it was off menu. I still claim that any place worth its salt should be able to make the classics. He said blood and sand isn't one of the classics. Damn.

After that, I got the Violet Hour Old Fashioned which is their signature drink. Frankly, I wasn't all that impressed still.

This is a large omelette that I had for breakfast.

For dinner on our last night, we walked until we found something that interested us. We finally decided on a French bistro. I started with this French onion soup which had probably a pound of cheese. And I ate it all, which turned me a little green.

Then I had this steak au poivre which was pretty decent. All in all, not a bad trip. I should plan better for the next one though.