Tag Archives: Chicago

March 2, 2015 · 2:18 am

Tank Noodle, Francesca’s, Eataly, The Public– Chicago

At the Public, Chicago

At the Public, Chicago

Coffee break, Eataly

Coffee break, Eataly

Busy Saturday at Tank Noodle where everyone seemed eager to come in from the cold for some steaming hot Pho which is what I should have ordered instead so my usual Bun, which was not as good as I’ve had elsewhere. next time.
for dinner we had a nice quiet table at Francesca’s on chestnut for our party of six. not the best Italian food but a warm pleasant place with nice easy going vibe, good service and cozy environs. also with in walking distance of my aunts apartment, another plus.
We braved the cold (at least it was sunny) to walk to Eataly, which is always fun for the sensory overload alone. I picked up a loaf of the rustic orange bread and we had some overpriced coffees a t a very Italian feeling expresso bar.
Today we stopped for more coffee at the cafe by day/bar by night at the Public hotel, a high style place that used to be the ambassador hotel. quick trip but good to get out of out cabin for a few days.

Fireside, the Public

Fireside, the Public

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October 13, 2014 · 3:31 pm

Nothing wrong with brunch – especially at M. Henry in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood

I was surprised and irritated by the silly anti-brunch diatribe in yesterday’s NYTimes Brunch is for Jerks which I read a day after having an excellent brunch at M. Henry, a cheerful restaurant in Chicago’s Andersonville. Talk about a first world issue. (It was the writer who sounded like a jerk.)

There were a few people waiting outside M.Henry when we arrived around 1:30 p.m. (after long drive from Iowa to Andersonville to see our son’s new apartment there) but we were whisked off to a table in a few minutes. The brunch (or was it lunch?) menu had lots of good-sounding egg and starch (french toast, waffles) options. N. and I had a delicious fried-egg sandwich (eggs, bacon, gorgonzola on crispy country-style bread served with perfectly roasted and seasoned — and hot —  potatoes); D had an interesting Mexican egg dish with bean cakes and R. had a vegan stir-fry. The place was packed but plenty of elbow-room in a cheerfully decorated space and good service. We’ll return – NYTimes diatribe notwithstanding.

chicagochicago31chicago

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June 24, 2014 · 2:41 am

Lady Gregory’s in Andersonville; Andy’s Thai Kitchen (again); Santorini in greektown: Chicago

we were not really hungry when we went to lady Gregory’s Pub and grille in Chicago’s Andersonville on Friday night but that is part of the reason I made a reservation there? We would be coming from a college reception At Northwestern where I wasn’t sure whether we would be fed. Turns out we were  – open bar, tons of appetizers and desserts. Lady Gregory’s had a the kind of menu where you could eat a lot or a little for not much. So I split a salad with rotisserie chicken with another diner; others had serviceable burgers and grilled cheese sandwiches and what looked like good tomato soup. we had an excellent very peppy waitress who took our shared dessert off our tab when she learned we were celebrating my sons college graduation.

The next night we went to an old favorite in Greektown, Santorini. food is fine but mostly drawn there because there were 20 of us and I knew they could handle that. A rather assertive veteran waiter did indeed! And everyone was happy with thei meals… Greek chicken, taramasalata, Greek salad, lamb kebabs et. Al. Also another trip to Andy’s Thai Kitchen which has become a tradition. Food still great. JUst wish they took credit cards.

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May 19, 2014 · 2:36 pm

Dark Matter, Andy’s Thai Kitchen, the best photo location – Chicago

chicagoskylinephoto 5Went to a very good coffee house – if you like your coffee very strong and dark –  in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village on Saturday called Dark Matter. Classic hipster hangout – edgy decor and clientele (except, perhaps for me…). Also returned to Andy’s Thai Kitchen which continues to impress. Only wish Andy accepted credit cards. Yet again, we were scrounging around for cash to pay. But for four of us, the bill was a remarkably reasonable $15 each. (The crispy pork belly is to die for; also the icky-sounding pork neck is delicious; also liked the squid appetizer with a tangy dipping sauce and the very spicy panang curry).darkmatterphoto 3

I took my adorable almost 2-year-old niece Lucy, who was visiting from Los Angeles, on a long walk on a beautiful Sunday morning, north on Astor Street, past all the lovely old homes with beautiful tulips, hydrangea, pansies and rhododendrons in orange, red, yellow, dusty blue-purple and pink into the park and across the bridge that goes above the rushing traffic on Lake Shore Drive. Along the lake front we watched all the action – a large group of people doing odd calisthenics, very fit shirt-less guys pounding volleyballs, runners, bikers, and I took a photo of Lucy (looking somewhat befuddled or irritated) at my favorite quintessential Chicago skyline location! City never looked better!chicagopix

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August 10, 2013 · 7:13 pm

To the Iowa State Fair with visitors from Israel, Illinois

  • el bait shop
  • el bait shop
  • el bait shop

The Iowa State Fair has lured several visitors our way this summer – this weekend it’s my stepdaughter E. and her boyfriend from Chicago, plus our houseguest from Israel. Next weekend, my son is coming from Northwestern with three or four (he wasn’t sure last we talked) of his friends – from Oregon, Colorado, New Jersey and maybe California.

The weather is perfect today – Sunny, 80-ish, no wind – so the fair is bound to be packed and in its full glory. We got a glimpse of what we may be in for this morning at the jam-packed downtown farmer’s market in Des Moines. And last night, our visitors reported lots of people hanging out downtown at bars like the High Life Lounge , designed to look like a 1960’s tavern, complete with formica, shag carpet and wood paneling…plus Miller High Life beer, of course, (see photo above) and El Bait Shop…

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June 18, 2013 · 12:22 am

Pain in the neck paying my “unpaid toll” in Illinois

ISTHA Seal.JPG
Illinois Tollway logo.png

It took me about an hour to figure out how to pay my 60 cent “unpaid toll” on Interstate 284 online, in part because I couldn’t figure out which of the many interchanges was the specific one that I drove through without paying because I had two untenable choices – the exact change lanes or the i-pass lanes, neither of which I had. My advice in the future: if you do drive through without paying – try to figure out or make a mental note of where you are and the exchange number if possible (I don’t recall one being posted anywhere.) And you have to pay within 7 days or supposedly you are liable for a $20 fine. We had another situation like this on I-88 with unpaid tolls (this time because are only option was NOT to pay since the toll booths were unattended after 10 p.m. or so when we were passing through during our drive from Des Moines) and we got some sort of threatening warning that the third unpaid toll would not be a charm. And this was several years ago (we stopped going on I-88 after Illinois jacked up the tolls so markedly and now we go primarily on toll-free I-80…our tolls last week was because we took toll roads to Oak Park and to Evanston rather than taking toll-free I-55 into Chicago, as usual.)

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June 2, 2013 · 4:29 pm

TripAdvisor’s “Top travel destinations” – a few surprises….

Lists are dubious but oh so easy to read – and so I sometimes do.  TripAdvisor’s “Winners 25 Best Destinations” (no word on how the “winners” were chosen) includes many obvious places  and I was pleased to see I’d been to the “top eight” (Paris, New York, London, Rome, Barcelona, Venice, San Francisco,  Florence yadah yadah yadah) but some places that we’re visiting soon also made the list. No – not Kiev (see scenes above) or Bucharest (see below) or Moldova (the world’s most unhappy place if you believe this report http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENK4rS7Y02U), where my husband is going. But Prague squeaked into the top 10 at  #9; Berlin was #11 and Chicago  #14.

Bucharest City Hall

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April 30, 2013 · 11:09 pm

Sweat the details when contemplating flying RyanAir and EasyJet from London

Ryanair logo.svg
IATA
FR		 ICAO
RYR		 Callsign
RYANAIR
Founded 1985

So my trip to Poland (Gdansk, Krakow) and Prague this summer keeps growing – first I added Berlin. And then when I saw that I’d be flying home via London, I had to figure out a way to stop there too and see all my pals and the city where I used to live and will always love.

Then came a mad search to find those great cheap flights I’ve been hearing about from London to the continent – and I found several very reasonable flights from London to Berlin but the fares kept going up as I ruled out several airports to fly out of in London (no to Southend, which I’d never heard of – it’s in Essex – and which one English friend said would take as long to get to from central London as it takes to get from Des Moines to Heathrow; and no to Luton, which I did fly to Israel out of back in, um, 1982 and is also a schlep; yes to Gatwick and Stansted, which are reasonably easy to get to via public transport from central London) and as I ruled out very early flights (which would rule out getting to the airport via public transport.)

It looks like I’ll end up with a flight for about $98 – which isn’t the $40 I first thought it could be (although that hardly seemed possible) – but it’s not bad. That’s about what it costs these days to fly from Des Moines to Chicago one-way (thanks to Southwest Airway’s arrival in Des Moines.) I was tempted to take the train from London to Berlin but it stops in Paris where you have to switch trains and I don’t think I could bear to just pass through Paris.  So plane it is!

EasyJetlogo.SVG
IATA
U2		 ICAO
EZY		 Callsign
EASY
Founded 1995

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February 25, 2013 · 12:05 am

Joffrey ballet/auditorium theatre; mercat/the Blackstone Hotel–Chicago

I splurged on tickets to see The Joffrey Ballet and It was worth every shekel
as expected. The dancing was superb, as always, and the program varied, from Twyla Tharp’s choreography to nine Sinatra songs to a perky piece by Jerome Robbins, an avant garde piece by John Adams and an intimate piece danced by a spectacular couple, choreographed by Gerald Scarpino, the joffrey’s co founder.

It is also always a treat to attend a performance at the elegant old Auditorium theatre at Roosevelt University, an 1889 beauty by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler with its murals, gold leaf adorned ceiling, mosaics. much as I enjoy the spare design of the new theatre by Millenium park, it can’t compare to the old world charm of the auditorium. (“the greatest room for music and opera in the world bar none” according to Frank Lloyd Wright.)

We ate a very interesting light lunch at Mercat a la Planxa, a catalan-inspired restaurant (think barcelona) in The Blackstone Hotel, another elegant old turn of the century Chicago place known for its smoke filled rooms where local pols made their deals. My sister and I had a delicious thick soup arroz a la cazuela, with rice,bits of chicken, chorizo and shrimp; an interesting mixed greens salad with asparagus, avocado, green beans, shaved mahon cheese; and a one of a kind dessert – croquetas de xocolata, deep fried balls filled with hot liquid chocolate, each plopped in a little pool of carmel and banana marshmallow fluff.

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February 22, 2013 · 5:25 am

Windy city: cafe zinc, studio gang show at art institute

Blustery day in Chicago, with the winds especially fierce along Michigan avenue so after a pleasant lunch at cafe zinc ( cream of mushroom soup, egg salad sandwich) I got a bus pass and some ear muffs at Walgreens and hopped onto the 151 bus to the art institute where I caught what I believe is one of the last days of an exhibit about studio gang, the architecture firm of Jeanne Gang, which designed the fabulous Aqua building in downtown Chicago and lots of other buildings as I learned from the exhibit. Well worth a visit. I also popped to see the small collection of folk art at the institute. I didn’t have enough time or energy to go to the Picasso in Chicago show that just opened.

20130221-232530.jpg this is a cool building in Iowa, near grinnell.

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