Chicago trip report

Memorial Day weekend was much cooler than normal, so we had to bundle up. It was fortunate that we checked the forecast, because all the extra outerwear we brought came in useful. We're talking about a 40 degree difference from the temperature on the Sunday of last year (i.e. last year, 97; this year 57). Anyway, this was our first trip for which the destination was a restaurant. We like to go to good restaurants no matter where we go, but normally, we choose a destination and then figure out where to go. In this case, the restaurant dictated the destination. You might guess that the destination in this case was Alinea. In fact, it turned out that the whole trip was food centered. We tried many other Chicago standouts, from gourmet hot dogs at Frank 'n Dawgs, to steak, at Chicago Cut Steakhouse, to pizza, at Lou Malnoti's, and an long time neighborhood standout Lula Cafe But we also got around town and the environs to see the Art Institute of Chicago Museum, took in a show, the Book of Mormon at the Bank of America Theater, a bit of shopping, the Chicago Architecture Foundation's river tour, Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio and took a quick look at the McDonald's Museum, their replica of the first McDonald's store. We stayed at the Radisson Blu Aqua, a hotel in a new architecturally significant building. We got a decent AAA rate and paid a small upcharge to get a very nice room looking East over the lake, with views, between other high rises, of Navy Pier and the lake. Hotel and room are done in the modern style. The lobby is trying a bit too hard, but the rooms are nice, simple and clean designs, with blond wood floors, a nice tub, lots of light and in our case, a pretty big wrap around balcony. Parking is pretty expensive. If you park here, you have two choices, either the self-park, or valet. The self-park is by the hr, not cheap either, with a $43 daily max. The valet has in-and-out privileges and is $53 + tips. The way we figured is that if your initial stay in the garage is 5 hrs or so, and you got out once, it'll be cheaper to go with the valet. The more times you go in/out, the more cost effective it is. Our first day, Saturday, was slightly cool, but pretty comfortable. From the hotel, it's a short walk to the Chicago Art Institute museum, and you pass by "The Bean" the very shiny sculpture in Millenium Park. The Jay Pritzker Pavilion, designed by Frank Gehry, has a good solution for the speed of light vs speed of sound discrepancy, by having speakers placed overhead the entire seating area, including the expansive grass area behind the seats. In this way, if one were at the back of the grass, looking through binoculars at the stage, the sound would be in sync with what you were seeing. In practice, they probably weren't so much thinking of that as being able to evenly distribute the sound over a large area (i.e. rather than having huge speakers by the stage. We had a nice lunch at the Museum's restaurant (Terzo Piano), and went to the museum. The standouts include the Chagall glass windows, a number of notable Monet paintings, which are part of a decent collection of Impressionists. There are impressive collections of other artwork too, and it's a big museum; we didn't cover much of it, given our limited time. We missed Edward Hopper's famous "The Nighthawks" which was on loan to a traveling exhibit. The main reason for the trip was the Saturday evening dinner at Alinea. If you've reading older entries of this blog, you'll know that we've been to a number of well known and highly rated restaurants, including this years San Pellegrino #1, El Cellar de Can Roca. That list is more like a popularity contest, as opposed to Michelin's stars, and although I have not been to most of the listing, of the ones I have been to, I would disagree with their ordering. Anyway, be that as it may, I thought Alinea's fun quotient was way off the charts, and that, coupled with excellent cuisine itself, puts it on my list at the top. The main hallway entrance to the restaurant, after you pass through the check-in person standing outside, is an art installation. I'm sure it changes; for us, it was a collection of hanging glassware with flowers in them. The footpath was soft and reminiscent of a forest floor. The whole effect was quite magical. Once through the corridor, there's a 2nd door to enter the restaurant itself, where you are met by the staff to hand off coats, etc, and also get the first thing to eat. For us, a puff of cotton candy with, no doubt, many flavorings in it. We were seated upstairs at the large table for 6 by the window. There are two such tables, but our one seems like it is slightly more private feeling. This is in contrast to the 2- and 4-tops lined up along the main wall of the dining room. Our table could easily fit 8, so there's a lot of elbow room. When we were seated, the table had, along with the place setting, a large cylindrical glass vase filled with flowers and iced water (I guess, echoing, somewhat, the art of the entranceway). We were unsure if it was just a table decoration or what; as it turned out, it was part of an elaborate multi-item course, where it served as the repository of a small bowl of sashimi. This conglomeration of dishes was one of the highlights -- there were 8 presentations at the same time: the aforementioned sashimi, a deep fried shrimp head, a smoked piece of fish, a piece of fish with some poaching liquid, a hot rock, some scallop slices that you were to cook on said hot rock, maybe some others, and to finish, a pineapple palate cleanser. Many other fab dishes followed, with another highlight being one of the dessert courses, an apple film helium balloon. Actually the final dessert course was a fitting climax to the meal. Grant Achatz and one of his sous chefs came out, after the table was laid with a surface off which one would eat. They delivered a pot of liquid nitrogen, poured into 3 chocolate bowls filled with cream. While the nitrogen boiled away, they painted the table with sauces and other garnishes. Then, with a flourish, they picked up an smashed down the chocolate bowls, now totally frozen, which broke into ice cream and chocolate pieces. To summarize, I would have to emphasize the fun aspect of it. The staff was totally unpretentious, and in fact, quite funny. It's very expensive, no doubt, but in the end, was worth it for the experience of having what is, in essence, a food show. Yes, showcasing the ingredients, the technique, the details, etc, but really, it's all in service of the show. And speaking of shows, we really enjoyed Book of Mormon. It starts out innocently enough, generating laughs from gentle situations, either from physical humor or in the lyrics, but this soon turns to mining laughs from shocking situations and lyrics, and soon, you're wondering where the plot is going to go. There are some really hilarious setups, and you start to question the portrayal of some of the characters, but in the end, everything works out with a happy ending. Other highlights of the trip: Chicago Architecture Foundation river cruise: very convenient to our hotel, at the foot of the S. Michigan Ave bridge, is the embarkation point. Our docent clearly knew the material backwards and forwards, and we saw the many styles of architecture in the buildings fronting (and sometimes, not directly fronting) the river. Well worth the time to learn about many interesting facts, and with luck, you'll get nice weather. For us, it was cold and grey with low overcast, so low that many of the buildings' tops were obscured, including, of course, the Sears Tower. Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio, in Oak Park. This is a bit of a drive out of town, but is quite interesting. The house is less interesting, but is a good way to show how his signature style evolved; his studio addition is wonderful. It's hard to believe that his modern style was in the early 1900s. In the neighborhood around his house are several houses of his design. His early designs are more traditionally based, but have some aspects of his style, such as continuous windows. Some of them are rather weird, e.g. the Nathan Moore house; others are considered masterpieces, e.g. the Arthur Heurtley house (I'd agree). All are very interesting, and the neighborhood is full of fine old houses of other styles. The thought ran through my head though, that in the early 1900s, when quaint Queen Anne style and other house styles that were being built at roughly the same time: I can imagine lots of head-shaking from the neighbors about having to live next door to these ugly houses. Tennis at the East Bank Club. I play tennis a lot at my home club, the San Francisco Tennis Club. When I travel, I like to find places to play. The East Bank Club is a well established club in downtown Chicago, where Obama, and Oprah (and 10,000 others) are members. I managed to get an hour with a pro early in the morning that worked out very well. Hit well, and had a nice time. Black Dog Gelato. We like ice cream and gelato, and the SF Bay Area has a number of good places, such as Ici in Berkeley, Humphrey Slocume in SF, and others. And we like to scout out place where we visit. Such a place is Black Dog Gelato, only open Fri-Sun. We managed to get there after a meal at Chicago Cut steakhouse, just before it closed. Good stuff. Deep dish pizza at Lou Malnoti's. Since this trip was very food centric, we wanted to hit not only Alinea, but other Chicago style food. Thus, Frank 'n Dawgs, and Malnoti's for deep dish pizza. Here in the SF Bay area, we have few chains that serve "chicago-style" deep dish pizza, such as Zachary's and Little Star. I suppose that even within the genre, there is variation, though Zachary's and Little Star are quite similar -- they have very tomato centric filling, with a cornmeal crust. We wanted to try chicago-style *in* chicago. I don't know how the other chicago places do it, but Malnoti's deep dish is really like a thick thin crust. The crust is crunchy, the topping is more like a double/triple layer of "regular" topping, i.e. cheese centric, and it was really good. Some other notes: hard to find hot chocolate out of season ... since it was quite cold one day, we wanted to get a hot chocolate. First two places that were supposed to have it, did not. Third place was the NoMI cafe at the Park Hyatt. We had some bar food from there too. Not good value for money there. Enjoyed the trip. What we saw of Chicago was great. Of course, we stuck to the main downtown area + near northern sections, so it's not a complete view, but on the other hand, do I visit San Leandro much?