it's undoubtedly a great time to try to find some 100 level bulls/hawks fan who isn't getting his 100k/yr bonus from the bank anymore. offer XYZ up front and/or some free tickets to get ahold of them permanently.

went to chicago last week.

thought giordanos was pretty good. lou malnati's was awful in every way. fogo de chao was fantastic. the science museum was mehhh. actually really liked the city though.

wow. definitely not a standard reaction.

I actually agree with this. Edwardos is also on par with Giordanos.

went to malnati's at about 7pm on a friday night. tons of people outside waiting. was told 30-40 mins wait and we could preorder our pizza now if we liked. sure that's fine, no ty to preorder. after about 45 mins i wander back inside to check our status on the list. the girl at the front tells me she doesn't have that list anymore so she can't tell us whereabouts we are. interesting. there are people EVERYWHERE, everyone is fed up, the organisation is absolutely dreadful. is it that hard to install a buzzer system?

anyway after 1h45m we get to our table and wait another 40m for a crappy pizza. the crust isn't to my taste at all, i can accept that it might be to some people. the topping was totally overseasoned and was prone to just coming off the pizza. it was just like a pizza base with a layer of topping that was just sliding all over the place. absolute garbage to be honest!

Am going to this place tomorrow:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archive...s-america.html

trip report to come.

blasphemy

QFMFT

Lou's>>>Giordanos. Although Pequod's > all.

Well, to be fair sushi in Chicago is never going to be as good as, say, San Francisco IMO. My favorite things at Meiji are the Chawan mushi soup and the grilled hamachi appetizer nomnomnom. . .

Proposed to my wife at Arun's. It's very good. Truthfully, not quite as good as Trotter's or Tru but certainly cheaper and just a step below. The problem I have with places like Arun's is that I am Chinese so often what I consider the best Asian food is the really authentic street/dive type food. Still, Arun's is damn good, and certainly an experience with Thai food I don't expect to have again.

I would definitely be down for this but have no idea where to find them?

Where have you seen Bears PSLs for sale?

The Museum of Science and Industry has really lost it's luster in the last 20 years. The exhibits have been dumbed down and really caters to children. But their are much more interesting science places even for children in the City and Suburbs. Additionally it doesn't keep up with advances in science and technology like it once did. There's still some nooks and crannies that hold interesting exhibits and the U-505 exhibit is pretty cool. But it's currently not a place I'd recommend for someone visiting Chicago for a short period of time.

Pequod's is sooooo good and I never think to go there

I went to Trotter's restaurant in Vegas was pretty meh imo. Arun's is sooooo good probably my favorite meal in the city, but I love thai food so much.

EM2, have you been to sticky rice or Spoon Thai? I've loved both and they are pretty authentic, you just need to ask for the non-regular menu to get the best stuff. They aren't anywhere near as high-end as Arun's, but are well worth checking out

EM2 recommended http://www.arunsthai.com/aruns.html to me for Thai. Thoughts?

dean- I haven't been there, but I've had a fair amount of quality thai places that aren't high end. To me high end thai seems a bit of an oxymoron as you can get great stuff w/o paying $75+ a dinner. For me if I'm paying that for a dinner, I'm gonna do it at spiaggia, tru, etc

also, how was the pizza at the place you just went to? I highly suggest checking out CoalFire Pizza as it was great the last time I went


here's an idea that I've just thought of, who would be up for a meet up at a resturant. We keep on giving recs and talking about places, so who'd be interested in hitting up a place on a monday or tuesday night where I can negotiate a better corkage policy if a place has one. Basically we bring a bottle of our choosing that is $25+ and eat some good food. Basically thinking of doing this in later september so that we can get a few people together. I will say, if we do do a sushi place, champagne and chardonnay would be best with pinot noir and barolo being the best red wine combos(not trying to have a specific theme as I do that **** all the time with my wine groups, but I can speak from experience, cabs and sushi don't work). If there's any interest, either post in here or PM me and we can work it from there


edit: or a happy hour/night at either the Map Room or Hop Leaf for a great beer fest could work too

i've never been to aruns.

my problem with the place, having never been there, is that the menu doesn't in any way seem different than those at many good thai places that cost 10% as much for dinner. until they can explain to me why their tofu/chicken/noodles/etc is worth $100 when someone else's is worth $10, i'm probably not going to go.

that said, i love thai food, and am a huge fan of sticky rice (pineapple fried rice in the restaurant is amazing), spoon (nam kao tawt!!!), and tac quick (whole fish special is so good). also, one of the only redeeming things about hyde park, culinarily, is the density of thai places that are decent.

....

tomorrow i'm apparently going out to giordano's, then going to navy pier. my gf has a hs friend coming to town, who has a bf from michigan who thinks he's from chicago and is showing her around the city! joy.

....

something i'm actually really excited about:

the Olafur Eliasson exhibit at the MCA, which is closing in about a week. looks great. (this is the guy who did the waterfalls under the brooklyn bridge).
http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibition...ail.php?id=201

another:

arabian nights, at the looking glass, being put on by zimmerman (silk, pericles, etc)
also closing in about a week.
http://lookingglasstheatre.org/content/

last week i went to the chopping block for a cooking class on some kind of double date.
"new" location is in the merc. we took "knife skills 101" which was fun. they also have things like butchering, seafood, baking, dumplings. i'll probably do more some time soon, and i recommend as a date activity. alternatively, other cooking shops, like the wooden spoon in andersonville, or the other chopping block location do classes as well.

tonight, did drinks at the violet hour like most thursdays, which was great, as like every time, and then headed over to hot chocolate so i could get a burger and gf could get dessert. in case people haven't been there for dessert, you should. it's great. i was shocked and happy that when we walked in around 9:15 and asked if there was a table for 2 available on a random thursday night they said there was a list and approx a 1hr wait. that said, you can do dessert in the bar/waiting area. (multiple beard award nominations, possibly a win?, for desserts.)

other thing i'm excited about: xoco, new rick bayless place that's going to open next door to frontera and topolo. more focused on street food/lunch food. predicting lines down the block, etc, but still super excited.

aand that's all for me for tonight.

My date had to finish work on a book so we skipped dinner and went straight to the play (which I didn't enjoy!). I'll go there in the next month, pretty sure.

I would be up for having a dinner club and sampling a new place every week.

kdawg,

i'd potentially be up for such a thing. (wow, dean, you're willing to commit to eating with 2p2ers once a week? are you insane?)

i live a few blocks from great lake pizza, and honesty, it's really, really good. andersonville is pretty littered with relatively new thin crust pizza places, with great lake, pizza apart, and antica pizzeria. i'm not sure which is my favorite of these, but for strictly the pizza, it's almost undoubtedly great lake. if i had to commute to the place and then deal with the miserable service (which may have gotten better, idk? maybe they hired help?) i would probably not enjoy it as much, but since i can stop by, make an order and come back 15 minutes later for a pizza, it's pretty great.

i've been to coal fire a couple times, and the coal oven taste is unique and nice. if, for some reason, you wanted to do pizza and had to eat in that nbhd, i'd definitely recommend. i have to agree with one of my friends, though, that asking for them to "just burn it" is a great idea, as they'll cook the crust until it's actually crisp and crunchy.

(sidenote: ugh @ tru. last time i was there i was very dissappointed. however, considering going back for the multi course dessert only meal which was last i checked still $35.)

cit, I've definitely been eyeing up the slew of new pizza places that have been opening in andersonville thinking that they'd be perfect for a super tuscan or brunello tasting with one of my groups. Obviously it doesn't have to be that specific as I haven't done a dinner with non-winos in forever

I enjoyed CoalFire a lot more before they put in $10 corkage and a limit on bottle count(I don't care about $10 corkage, but I rarely abide by a 1 bottle per head type thing)

I'd be commuting from Wilmette, so basically any place that is in the loop or north is all good by me since I'm used to the travel for both restaurants and going to depaul

Dont know about the city as a whole, but downtown is awesome. Best pizza I ever had Ginos east!!! For those who dont know downtown chicago is on the edge of Lake Michigan. Its so big it looks like an ocean. There is also a river that runs though the downtown area it is a beautiful city. Killer view from Sears tower

FYP. Effing Willis.

Citanul, all solid Thai food choices. There's an appetizer at Tac Quick, don't remember what it's called, but it's some sort of Thai meatball which you wrap in lettuce leaves with raw garlic, Thai basil, and I think some sort of eggplant. Heavenly. Also, the boat noodles with beef at Tac Quick rule. It may not be on the menu but you can order it.

Hahaha is TacQuick a well known place? I used to go there all the time when I stayed with my friend at Sheridan and Irving Park. It was decent, but I would never think about going there if it wasn't down the street.

Anyone have recommendations to get at Frontera Grill going to stop in there in the next week or two.

Arun's is a tasting menu with 12 or so courses. Where you pretty much get a lobster tail for yourself, an entire fish, a shrimp dish I believe, and some meat dishes. Obviously the lobster dish alone is going to make it over 30 dollars a person. I thought for 75 dollars the tasting menu was well worth it. 75 for a t menu is pretty cheap compared to other places in Chicago, Vegas, and New York.