I rarely go out for breakfast, but I like that I started this item in January with a start-of-the-day meal. I was at Northside Toyota getting my oil change, and it was going to be a bit, so I went down the street to grab some food. I've been to the one of the other locations, Nookies Too, mostly after many drinks in my 20's. This Nookies location is a bit more like a restaurant than the others. I had the corned beef hash and some ice tea. Both were enjoyable but nothing to go back for. I did like the option of tomatoes as a side. Still, a nice treat to have a meal out!
2 - Table, Donkey, Stick
1/30/18 with Drea Stoit
One of the best events in Chicago is Restaurant Week. People who have never lived here often do not know how flipping phenomenal the food is in this city. I mean, it's consistently rated as one of the very best foodie cities in the world. We even have Alinea, which I will never be able to afford to go to. Hell, I can't afford many of the top-notch restaurants in Chicago... except during Restaurant Week. I've had some very memorable meals. This year, Drea and I went to Table, Donkey, Stick. I liked it fine. But I also did a bad job making choices.
For my first course, I had the duck liver mousse. That was fantastic. Really smooth and flavorful.
For my second course, I had some kind of chic pea salad kind of thing. I didn't really get it, but it was fresh and filling.
For my third course, I ordered the pork shoulder. That was my mistake and completely my fault. When Drea was deciding what to order, she asked the server about the pork shoulder. The server said it was really good and described it as tasting more hammy than you might think. Well, I hate ham. Always have. So I asked her to clarify. Because I like prosciutto and many things ham-adjacent, but I do not like ham. She said she thought I'd probably still like it then. I didn't. It was so hammy. Like, not so hammy that I didn't eat it. I did. But the whole time I was thinking, yeah, this tastes a lot like ham. And I don't like ham. So that's my bad.
Their wine list was short but the server was super knowledgeable, so I was very happy with my wine. And when I'm happy with the wine and 2 of the 3 courses, hey, that's a good meal.
Plus, it was nice to catch up with Drea as we've only seen each other in busy groups since I've been back. It was a lovely choice for Restaurant Week!
I took no pictures of my food.
3 - Maggiano's
1/23/18 with Maureen McGonagle, Gale Stewart, John Washo, Scott Vandermoon, Nicole Garton, Leanne Surmin, Stephanie Punda, Sabrina Wilson, Shaun Cooley
I've been hearing about Maggiano's for over a year now. Apparently it's Moe's favorite restaurant and we lunch there regularly during work retreats. But I'd never been.
It was definitely much fancier than I was expecting. I had the chicken piccate. Um... yum. I probably could have done the lower-cal version of something as it was quite buttery, but for the bites where I could forget about the guilt.... delicious.
Plus, we spent the whole meal talking about cats and I didn't have to drop a dime. Delightful.
4 - Hei Yen
4/19/18
Thanks to a promotion with Heartful Editor, I was able to quit my regular gig hosting trivia with Whaddayaknow. Honestly, I flippin love hosting trivia and working for Whaddayaknow, and the only reason I stepped down was because the hours are just too rough on me. Since gigs don't start until 7/7:30pm and I finish my full-time job around 5:00pm, I just always felt like I was wasting those in-between hours and those extra 2 hours felt more like 4-5 hours, which makes for a very, very long day. However, if I can ever swap my schedule around, I will totally pick back up with trivia again (if Dan will have me).
Because I finally had my Thursday evenings free, I was able to check out Third Thursdays on Argyle. I'm not really sure if this is an ongoing thing or was just a trial run. It's supposed to be several businesses that have deals on the 3rd Thursday of every month. I decided to check out Hei Yen. I had some pho. It was good. I still like a few other places down the street better, but I will totally go back there to try other things, particularly as I heard a woman at another table raving about some dish they have that she can't find wherever she's from, so she comes back every time she's in town. I'm not sure I got the discount, but hey, new place, yay!
5 - Beatnik's
4/22/18 with Laura Masters, Alan Lee, Missy Liebs, Scott Jensen, Megan Daly, Megan Voss, etc.
Masters was back at it again with the organizing of fun events. She got us a reservation at Beatnik's, and there must have been 25 of us there. Yes, we were one of those annoying giant brunch groups. And we had nothing to celebrate except brunch together.
Masters and I split a bottle for mimosas and I had the smoked salmon toast. I tasted a few other things. The food was very good, but the portions were very small, so for the price, there are better brunch spots. But the ambiance, whoa. This place is gorgeous. So overdone to the point that it's perfection. I really, really enjoyed the space. And the company.
6 - City Winery
6/29/18 with Robin Heggum
7 - Lobo Rey
6/23/18 with Jerry Munk and Nicole Garton
Nicole, Jerry, and I headed down to the South Loop for a food truck fest and to meet Masters and the gang. Unfortunately, by the time we got there, the fest was at capacity and not letting anyone else in. But... we were also pretty far into our Sunday Funday, so we really needed some food. We met the gang at Lobo Rey and had some Mexican food that was decent but the service took forever. I'd consider going back and giving it another shot as the space was really cool and Masters and Alan rave about it, but I wasn't super impressed.
8 - Beatrix
7/22/18 with Tara Edberg
Tara was in town and we were able to grab dinner. Since she was staying downtown, I did a little Yelp search for something reasonably priced by high rated near Michigan Ave... yes, those places to exist! I found Beatrix, which had more ratings for brunch but also looked good for dinner. The vibe had more of a brunch/lunch spot because there's a coffee/pastry shop in the the entry way, but the seating area was nice and trendy.
I had some wine and the cheese ravioli. It wasn't as much food as I was hoping for, but everything was really good. And it's not that the portions were unreasonable, but without any decent side options, it was a weirdly small amount in just getting one dish, and it would have been weird to get two. There were some apps, but we weren't really in the mood for those.
So overall, it was fine.
9 - Momotaro
9/1/18 with Laura Masters, Alan Lee, Missy Liebs, Scott Jansen, and Megan Daly
We hit up Momotaro for Masters' birthday. The drinks and service were excellence. The big shocker for me is that the best thing I think we had was the friend rice. The sushi, salads, and soup were good, but the fried rice was a game changer.
10 - Roanoke
11/15/18 with Laura Masters and Beth Jager
Masters made us reservations for dinner before I went off to see Miss Saigon with work buddies. They had a prix fix menu for theater goers, so we jumped on that. I had a beet salad, huge, tasty steak with potatoes, and panna cotta ice cream. Super good.
11 - Pueblo
12/6/18 with Laura Masters, Missy Liebs, Megan Morrison, and Carrie Kalita
Pueblo is tucked in a mall that is tucked into a huge building on State Street. I had no idea there was even a mall there. None of us had ever been, so we went for dinner before going to see The Play That Goes Wrong. The service was slow and the food was overpriced--though in a touristy area, so that makes sense--but everything was tasty. I likely won't go back, but I wasn't disappointed.
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