Chicago 2010 - Happy 3rd Anniversary (Day 3)

After Jason and I found out that we were having a little mini-us, we decided that we would take a trip somewhere for a few days without her for our anniversary each year. If you have been a reader of ours for at least a year, you will recall that last year we went to New Orleans and it was a big eat-fest. Our trip to Chicago this year was quite similar to that. Follow me as I take you through our vacation

Day 3 - Friday

We had a full day of food-related activities outside of downtown Chicago planned so we rented a car from Budget for the day. Prior to the pickup at the hotel, we walked to Xoco and picked up breakfast. All I can say is, if Xoco opened by my apartment or by my office, I’d be getting breakfast there. Every. Day. I told Jason that the next time we visit Chicago, my only requisite would be that we have to stay at a hotel closer to here.

I got the breakfast special which includes one of their hot chocolates, an empanada, and a churro. I forget how much it cost though but it was definitely worth it.

One of the best hot chocolates ever. I opted for the classic which is a chocolate shot with 2% milk. The chocolate flavor was deep, almost raisin-like, but not bitter at all.

Ham, egg, and cheese empanada with a freshly fried churro. The churros alone make the cost of the meal worth it. The best I’ve ever had.

Jason got a made to order breakfast torta. This was a little bit pricey at $7.50 but large so more than enough to share along with a churro or two. Never skip the churro.

I saw this sign and was extremely tempted to the soft serve with the maple-pecan-bacon-streusel and salted caramel sauce. I was trying to justify it as breakfast food because of the maple and bacon but Jason talked me out of it. I only relented because I thought we’d be going back but unfortunately, didn’t end up doing so. Moral: never put off bacon.

After picking up the car, we picked up our friend C, who came into Chicago the day before for work and was spending the rest of the weekend with us, along with our friend J, whose flight was arriving in a couple of hours. Make sense?

We made our way outside of the city to Hagen’s Fish Market.

This was just a pit stop on the way to our real lunch so I ordered sparingly just to try their popular and fresh, fried seafood. The people behind the counter were super friendly and even offered to fry me up a piece of something for free if all I wanted to do was try. I felt bad doing that so I got a few pieces of shrimp and a few scallops for us to share. J was on his way from the airport to meet us at Hagen’s so I knew I’d have an eating companion even though Jason and C said they were not hungry.

Smoked salmon candy. I got some of this and it was super delicious but unfortunately, we were out and about the rest of the day when it was about 100 degrees out so I had to throw most of it out.

Fried shrimp and fried scallop. These were not greasy or heavy at all because they were fried perfectly.

After J arrived in a cab from the airport, the four of us headed over to our real lunch destination, Smoque BBQ.

Part of the menu board. I loved that they offer half sandwiches here, especially since I had already eaten so much earlier in the day.

My half brisket sandwich. I love brisket more than any other BBQ meat and this didn’t disappoint. It wasn’t the best I’ve ever had but it was still delicious. I liked that it wasn’t fatty but managed to avoid the biggest offense of any brisket, dryness.

Jason’s half pulled pork. As much as I love brisket, Jason loves pulled pork. He really enjoyed this as well but I think he said it could have used a bit more pepper.

Our sides of french fries, cole slaw, and mac and cheese. The fries were good but nothing special. I liked the mayo-less cole slaw since it provided an acidic counterpart to the sweet and smoky meats. My favorite was the mac and cheese though; as evidenced by the fact that Jason only got one bite before I housed it.

A side of cornbread which was also delicious. I’m a big fan of cornbread but for some reason, many places don’t do it right. By right, I mean the way I like it of course. Smoque’s cornbread had the perfect texture and sweetness.

After lunch, we headed to a Cubs game at the iconic Wrigley Field. Jason got us great seats that were in a covered section so even though it was sweltering, we were at least shielded from the blazing sun.

* Lest you think I’m completely out of control, those ridiculously large order of nachos in a Cubs helmet were NOT ours. They were property of the two friendly guys who were sitting next to us. I just had to take a picture and they happily obliged.

After the game, we headed over to Pequod’s to try their deep-dish pizza.

Whole pizza and my slice

I had deep-dish pizza a couple of years ago in Chicago and even after giving it another chance at a local place as opposed to a chain, I still can’t get behind it. On paper, deep-dish pizza sounds delicious. It’s got bread, tomato sauce, cheese, sausage, and pepperoni. But in practice, it doesn’t work for me. I don’t think Pequod’s is bad by any stretch of the imagination. The pizza was perfectly fine and I ate my piece happily. Deep-dish pizza is just not for everybody. It’s certainly not for me.

As an aside, whoever opened this place is some kind of perv. My case in point:

The name of their company, the header on their sandwiches, and their logo which is a shark with a thong over it’s head.

After our early dinner and on our drive back to our hotel, we stopped by Tom and Wendee’s for Italian ices. I read that they have some of the best in the city so I was excited to try it out.

Chocolate ice which was super creamy and refreshing. I thought this was good but wouldn’t travel out of my way for it.

After this full day of eating/grazing, we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a couple of hours before heading out to Nacional 27 for a few drinks. I didn’t bring my camera but there wasn’t much to shoot anyway. The drinks were okay but not worth a repeat trip.

The next post will be shorter and less picture heavy. Therefore I’m going to combine the last day and a half of our time in Chicago into one See you then!

Chicago 2010 - Happy 3rd Anniversary (Day 2)

After Jason and I found out that we were having a little mini-us, we decided that we would take a trip somewhere for a few days without her for our anniversary each year. If you have been a reader of ours for at least a year, you will recall that last year we went to New Orleans and it was a big eat-fest. Our trip to Chicago this year was quite similar to that. Follow me as I take you through our vacation

Day 2 - Thursday

Jason and I started the day bright and early by picking up breakfast at Pierrot Gourmet before hopping on a bus to Lincoln Park Zoo. We happily ate on the bus on the bus and I took a few shots before we wolfed it all down.

Canele, which we’d both never had before but loved. It was like a chewy/crispy bread pudding.

If there’s an almond croissant to be ordered, you can be sure I will be ordering it.

We got to the zoo and were pleasantly surprised when we found out there was no admission fee! We did feel a bit odd though being one of the only few people there without children. I think I made up for it with my excitement and enthusiasm though. I haven’t been to a zoo in a really long time so it was pretty surreal to see giraffes and zebras. I couldn’t help running from exhibit to exhibit!

After the zoo, we headed to a newly opened lunch spot that Jason had chosen, The Purple Pig.

It was pretty busy when we got there around 12:30 so we grabbed two seats at the bar to avoid the wait time.

The lightest, fluffiest focaccia I’ve ever had

Ayinger beer on tap

Mortadella spread with aged balsamic and crushed pistachios

Jamon iberico

Camembert

Spring peas, farro, feta, mint, and lemon salad. I need to replicate this at home or an impromptu trip back to Chicago may be in order.

Pig’s ear with crispy kale, marinated cherry peppers, and fried egg. The richness of the egg yolk cut by the tartness of the pepper along with the crispiness of the ear and kale made this dish irresistible. I loved it with my beer.

Porchetta panini with a salsa verde spread. The pork was great and the salsa verde made an untraditional but delicious condiment. We were so full at this point that we were only able to eat half of it though.

I highly highly recommend this restaurant if you’re in the Chicago area. Every single dish that we had was a hit and the beer on tap is great too. They also have an extensive wine list, which we didn’t take advantage of at this meal, but we came back two days later and did then. Yes, that’s how good it was. We were on a 5 day trip and we “used up” two meals here.

After our rather gluttonous meal, we cabbed it over to Shedd Aquarium (it would’ve been a long walk!). I love going to aquariums so was really excited about going here. Unfortunately, other than the aquatic show, it was kind of a disappointment. It just didn’t compare to aquariums I’ve been to in the past, especially the National Aquarium in Baltimore. It was run down and dark without much to see. It cost us $30 a person to boot! Compared to the zoo that’s free, this didn’t hold a candle.

Here are the pics I took during the aquatic show.

We took the bus back up Michigan Ave to the Hancock Observatory after that. The price of admission is a little bit high for what it is (riding up an elevator and walking around the top floor of a building) but they include a free self-guided audio and visual tour narrated by Chicago native and actor, David Schwimmer. It sounds a bit cheesy but the information included in the tour about Chicago is actually quite interesting.

After the observatory, we headed around the block to the Four Seasons Lounge for dinner. Our friends S and C, who went to Chicago last year, highly recommended the sliders there and Jason is not one to pass up a recommendation for a good burger. The lounge literally looks like a lounge with sofas and coffee tables. This made it a little awkward to eat but the casual atmosphere, coupled with the fact that there was practically nobody there, made it perfect for sitting back and relaxing.

Complementary trail mix and Asian snack mix. We devoured the snack mix and left the trail mix for the birds

Aforementioned sliders which were in fact, one of the softest burgers I’ve ever eaten.

Homemade Chicago style hot dog. Everything on the plate but the bun is made in house.

So ended our second day in Chicago Stay tuned to the next posts where our friends J and C join us on our trip!

Chicago 2010 - Happy 3rd Anniversary (Day 1)

After Jason and I found out that we were having a little mini-us, we decided that we would take a trip somewhere for a few days without her for our anniversary each year. If you have been a reader of ours for at least a year, you will recall that last year we went to New Orleans and it was a big eat-fest. Our trip to Chicago this year was quite similar to that. Follow me as I take you through our vacation

Day 1 - Wednesday - Our actual anniversary day!

Our flight landed in Chicago around 11 and we decided to be frugal and took the El to our hotel. It’s a pretty straight forward means of transportation but there the closest stop to our hotel required that we transfer trains. That meant going up and down a lot of stairs carrying our heavy luggage. Not a wonderfully relaxing way to start off our vacation but after almost missing our flight and leaving my cell phone at home, it was a walk in the park. We got to our hotel around noon but our room wasn’t ready yet so we ventured over to the Trader Joe’s, which was conveniently located across the street, to grab some bottles of water.

When we got back our room still wasn’t ready yet so we hung around in the lobby and Jason checked work emails while I snapped some pictures. We didn’t really mind waiting because we were early and the staff there was just so nice that it was hard to be annoyed. In general, I can’t say enough good things about the service and facilities at The James.

The hotel is a bit far from the El but it’s very centrally located to all the things we wanted to do, only 1 block from Michigan Avenue, and in the middle of tons of restaurants, as well as across from the aforementioned Trader Joe’s. We ended up either taking a bus, catching a cab, or walking everywhere we went anyway so the distance from the El wasn’t really a problem.

After getting settled, we ventured out to our scheduled lunch at Blackbird. We caught a cab there since we knew we’d be walking around the rest of the day and were in a rush to get to lunch before they closed. It worked out well because we happened to drive along the river while a drawbridge was going up!

The architecture in Chicago is amazing. Look at this building~ The bottom floors are open garage spaces and the top floors are the residences. Jason said it wouldn’t be fun to get your car out of their in the winter; I can see that.

Here are some pictures from our meal at Blackbird.

We opted to share a salad to start which was quite honestly, one of the best I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to take a picture because the host who served it to us broke it up and served it to us quickly. I’ll direct you to this picture I found on Flickr since I don’t want to post it here and look like I’m taking credit for it. The salad is arranged inside of a fried spun potato cup that acted as the “croutons” to the dish. Best. Croutons. Ever.

Lamb burger with taleggio cheese and black onion

Pork belly with cole slaw

We both agreed that the lamb burger was unremarkable, the pork belly sandwich was well balanced, and the fries were incredible. If I learned anything about Chicagoans in my trip, it’s that they know how to do fries right.

After lunch, we walked to Millennium Park, which is breathtakingly beautiful. It’s so well-organized and groomed. The appreciation of art and architecture by the city is obvious with the huge pieces like the Silver Bean and the BP Bridge by Frank Gehry.

Silver bean reflecting a gorgeous day in Chicago

Jason said that the Buckingham Fountain was closeby so we wandered around looking for it. After about half an hour of wandering around in the sweltering heat, we finally spotted it like an oasis in the dessert. We walked across Grant Park and took tons of pictures of the fountain made famous (at least to us) by Married With Children.

Self portraits are hard with SLRs with zoom lenses

We walked back to the hotel around 4 (I think we walked a total of 4 miles that afternoon) and decided to take a quick nap before dinner. The next thing I know, Jason is tapping me on the shoulder and telling me it’s 7:45! I think I could’ve went back to sleep and slept through the rest of the night but since it was our anniversary night, I thought it’d be best if we went out

We had Rick Bayless’s

Spiced nuts

Delicious margarita

Chips with chipotle salsa and salsa verde

Cheddar fundido with short rib and roasted poblano

Ceviche trio (marlin, shrimp/calamri, tuna). All three had completely different tastes and textures.

Shrimp in a guajillo-mango sauce with red rice

Roasted suckling pig served with pickled onions/habanero salsa and flour tortillas

Fried sweet plantains with homemade sour cream and cotija cheese

Fruit soup with a creamy (but cream-less) avocado/lime ice cream

Super full but very happy

We walked back to the hotel after this and went to bed so we’d be refreshed for our next full day of walking

Post on day 2 to come!

Eating by Tanger Outlets

Once a year, Jason and I will splurge on ourselves and go out to the Tanger Outlets in Riverhead to get some new clothes. Since we’ll be going to Chicago for our anniversary soon, we decided this past weekend was as good a time as any. I did my research online and printed out tons of coupons to the stores we planned to hit up so we were prepared.

Naturally, another aspect of my preparation was centered around food. I knew we’d be out there all day and I didn’t want to settle for food from the food court. I turned to Google for places to eat in Riverhead and one of the first hits was Briermere Farms, which is a farm stand about 5 miles from the outlets. At first I dismissed it as a produce stand but then I looked at the reviews on Yelp. People claimed that it was the best pie they ever had and were driving out to Riverhead JUST for the pies! I found it a little hard to believe so had to find out for myself. I saw from some reviews that they also sold muffins there so I knew Jason could be convinced to check them out for breakfast. With our AM meal decided, I turned my focus to lunch. After some more Googling, I came across this post from Yvo, one of my favorite NYC bloggers! I’m always in the mood for seafood and the list of viable options for food out in Riverhead is not very long to begin with so Buoy One quickly made the cut.

Here is a picture of the apple tart (basically a big hand pie) from Briermere Farms.

They were just loading these into the case from the oven when we got there. I still think of this pie daily and am trying to think of ways to convince Jason to drive out there again just for this. First of all, it was ginormous so a great deal at $5. Jason and I shared it and still had enough to take home for my mom to try. The crust was incredibly crispy, flaky, and light. But it was substantial too. I prefer a high crust to filling ratio and this had exactly that. The filling itself was delicious as well. The apples were perfectly tender and not too sweet. It really blew my mind. We also got a strawberry muffin which we both really liked but to be honest, I was too busy enjoying the apple tart to take a picture of it We spent $14 on the muffin, tart, a jar of apple butter, and a no sugar-added fresh apple/raspberry juice. Not a bad way to start off our day of bargain hunting!

Briermere Farms has traditional whole fruit pies and cream pies that are both fresh and frozen. Next time we go out there, I will definitely bring a cooler so that the pies can withstand the wait in the car while we shop at the outlet. That was the only thing deterring me from buying a few pies to take home this time! The only negative thing I could see people saying of this place is that there’s no seating but we happily opened up the trunk of our SUV and ate inside while people watching

We shopped for a few hours and then headed 1.5 miles away from the outlet to Buoy One for lunch.

When we arrived, we were pleasantly surprised to see an outdoor patio area and since it looked like the rain was holding off, decided to take a seat out there.

Jason got the fried cod sandwich and a fried shrimp sandwich and I got the fried whole belly clams. We are so healthy In my defense, I only get fried whole belly clams once in a blue moon because unfortunately, only a few places offer them.

The menu at Buoy One is actually quite extensive with tons of specials and different preparation styles. Please don’t let our order deter you if you are a health nut because it’s definitely not a fried-seafood-only type shack. We were just in a fried seafood type mood If Jason could eat shellfish though, I think I would’ve gotten one of their lobster bakes. It smelled so fresh and fantastic and came in a big steaming pot. I was ogling the one set at the table next to ours.

Overall, our meal down to the cole slaw and cocktail sauce was great and inexpensive. I think the total for 2 beers, two sandwiches, and the platter was $40. We left happy and quickly because as soon as we paid, it started to pour.

Luckily, by the time we got back to the outlet, the rain had stopped and it was nice weather the rest of our trip

Warm weather!

I’ve always loved NYC during the springtime almost as much as I love NYC right before Christmas. The people here just seem generally friendlier, probably hopeful for the warmer weather after the post-Christmas, winter dreariness and trips to the farmer’s market are much more enjoyable in the warm sun.

That being said, I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to warmer weather as much as I have this year. Having a child inevitably adds prep time for all trips compared to when it was just you and your partner. Add in the cold weather and then you have to take into account multiple pant layers, winter jackets, hats, mittens, foot muffs on strollers, stuffing a child that is 18 lbs unclothed versus 25 lbs with all the layers into a car seat, etc… and you’re talking a good 30 minutes extra in the winter time. That’s IF you are willing to risk your child getting sick, you getting no sleep because of said sickness, and your parents/her grandparents yelling at you for taking their precious granddaughter out and MAKING her sick.

Needless to say, we didn’t necessarily hibernate but we were definitely more choosy with our going out adventures and they more often than not started off with frustrations.

So naturally when I heard that last Saturday was supposed to be 75 degrees, I made grand plans to spend most of it outdoors. Unlike most of my grand plans that never happen though, this actually did!!

Here are some pictures that I took from that day. I particularly like the ones where she’s trying to shove a sugarless blueberry muffin that’s as big as her face into her mouth. I hope you enjoy them too!

Happy holidays (a bit late) and a happy new year!!!

Jason, Jasmine, and I hope everybody had a very safe/healthy/happy/delicious holiday season! We just got back from two week trip that took us to Hong Kong and then Florida for the holidays and as you can imagine, I have pictures to put up but haven’t had a chance to review them yet. Once I do that, I’ll post about our trip that amongst other things, brought together 4 generations of women and introduced Jasmine to the joy of tearing open wrapping paper.

Because I know all 10 of our readers love pictures, here’s a quick picture I took of Jasmine on my iPhone Christmas morning:

2009 has certainly brought huge changes into our lives. We are grateful for them all and can’t imagine our lives otherwise.

We have been busy the last few months of this year and look forward to things slowing down a bit so we can enjoy the “little things” a bit more in 2010. I hope to be more diligent in documenting our food adventures and to also share my new hobby — sewing — in 2010.

In the meantime, we’d like to wish you all a very happy new year!!

First haircut!

As many of you may already know from pictures of Jasmine throughout the past year (!), our little girl was born with a full head of hair. This is her on her two week birthday! Please excuse the cupcake hat I forced upon her.

Within the first 2 months, Jasmine lost a lot of the hair on the back and left side of her head. That tends to happen to babies since they mostly lay on their backs and a favored side. Jasmine’s hair loss however, did not stop her hair GROWTH. This means that while some parts of her head had very little hair, there were other parts that had very long hair. Case in point:

If the longer parts had stayed neatly tucked behind her ears AND if she managed to keep hair clips in for more than 2 minutes, we might have been able to last a few more months to uphold Jason’s preference that we wait until her first birthday to cut it for tradition’s sake. Alas, such was not the case and every day we woke up to a girl with the craziest looking hair. Therefore, despite Jason’s strong will, he broke down in November and conceded that we needed to get it cut.

Jason got to work doing some research to find a place that would do his little girl’s hair right and found Cozy’s Cuts. They have several convenient locations in NYC and specialize in children’s haircuts. The store is half toy store and half hair salon with fun little chairs for the kids to sit in. It was a quick and painless experience, if a bit pricey at around $35.

Here’s the AMAZING video that Jason took of the haircut in progress. As you can see, she did very well in the chair and didn’t cry or fuss one bit. I daresay she even enjoyed it a bit

Here are some pics of her in the middle of the haircut as well as a family pic of us afterward. The last picture is the next morning where you can really see the bob. She got a compliment on it at the coffee shop the very next day!!

It’s only been a month and a half since this haircut and our little over-achiever already needs another cut!

Jasmine’s First Halloween

This past Halloween was our first with a baby so an otherwise non-momentous day for Jason and I was very exciting. Since Jasmine can’t currently express her own opinion on what she wants to be dressed up as, we had to come up with something on our own. I turned to the Internet for suggestions and even debated putting together a costume myself. I’ve recently started sewing - in the interest of increasing my domesticity - but knew a costume was way out of my league.

While we initially really wanted to dress her up as some kind of food (Jason’s suggestion was a chili pepper, shocker I know), we thought it better to dress her up as something more relevant to HER likes. During my internet searches, I came across a very cute and high quality monkey costume by Paul Alma and since Jasmine has a deep love for her monkey, Mono, whom she sleeps with every night, it worked. Only one problem, it retails for almost $100 after tax and shipping.

Now I fancy myself a person who splurges once in a while, but to spend almost a hundred dollars on a costume my child will only be able to wear once and probably not for long was out of the question. That’s where Ebay and my quick-on-his-feet husband came in to save the day.

I checked if there were any auctions going on and just my luck, there was one ending in 2 minutes and the latest bid was only $25!! I tried logging in quickly but seeing as I haven’t used eBay in at 4+ years, had no idea what my password could be. A frantic call to Jason left me further disappointed when he said he didn’t know his either. I thought all was lost when the auction ended and I still hadn’t managed to uncover my password. That is, until Jason called me, told me he looked for his password in his gmail after hanging up with me on the off chance it would be there, found it, logged in, bid, and won. Yes folks, this was all in about a 45 second span.

So thanks to our (Jasmine and my) hero, here are some pics from Halloween with Jasmine, our little monkey!

Click here to see the video that grandma shot of us putting her into the costume.

D.P. Dough Philly!

The four of us - Mikey, Scott, Jason, and I - traveled down a long and hard road for three years to get to where we were a few weeks ago. On Saturday, September 26th at 5 PM, we opened the doors of D.P. Dough Philly to business for the first time. Our full story deserves a book, let alone a blog post. I’ll reserve that for another time though and just leave you with a few of the pics from our opening day.

We were so unprepared to pass our health inspection that our soda wasn’t even scheduled to come in yet. Scott and I rushed to a local beverage depot and filled up the car with beverages.

The make-shift sign Jason put up to let people know we’d be opening that day.

Scott doing his best version of magnum with Corwin, our kick-butt manager in the background.

Some Penn students in our store getting their first taste of the zone greatness.

Sonny has been a great supporter of us despite the fact that we were the ones who kicked him out of his original location. He was even our first customer ever!

PYT in Philly

This is a haiku written by Jason and dedicated to one of the best burgers we’ve had in a long time.

Went to PYT
Served on Martin’s Tater Roll
Burger was perfect

Fries and onion rings were awesome too! :o)

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