I went to school on the North Shore at Lake Forest College and visited "the city" often (the city is a term for so many cities and everyone's "the city" is better than the other person's "the city", for instance, New Yorkers or Washingtonian's refer to NYC or D.C. as "the city" and to them, that really is THE CITY, but we all just say it because it sounds cool and cosmopolitan).
Anyway, visiting Chicago was and is always amazing. I would visit my best friend who attended Loyola and who lived at their Water Tower Campus frequently while at school. She knew the city (eat that New York) well and I was lucky to follow her around on adventures, mostly eating. Nom nom nom.
Chicago is especially entertaining around the holidays. Full of pretty twinkly lighted trees and festive window decorations at all the department stores. My mom and I like to make a trip to Chitown around this time and that we did about a week ago just for a quick overnight stay. What follows is an overview of our visit!
On Monday morning we arrive at the Hotel Palomar with our room ready because we smartly chose early check in. Yeehee hotel bathroom break! We are starved because we have done nothing but travel for a few hours, ha. So we stop by the Sable Kitchen & Bar located in the hotel. It is like the new place in Chicago and it lived up to all the hype. Plus Gwyneth, (why is this name so hard to spell? I spell it different every time and it is never right) mentioned it on GOOP. We were living the high life and our waitress was a sweetheart.
The hotel itself is beautiful in a modern way. Our room was pretty spacious with really cute decorations. The bed was comfy and the bathroom was clean. It was perfect for a mother/daughter combo. And to showcase some attitude, instead of the plain old white fluffy robes hotel rooms always have, the Hotel Palomar had zebra and leopard print robes! My mom got the zebra because she said the leopard would go better with my hair?
The first stop on our 24 hours in Chicago was to head to the Art Institute to fill our cups with a little culture. Although the steps at museums are always HUGE and hard to walk up, I love art museums. We had a great time UNTIL I SAW THIS LITTLE GUY,
When I came to this painting I knew it was meant to be,
From there we walked to the Christkindlmarket, a happy outdoor holiday market with crafts and food and beer.
And then there were crepes. I'm pretty sure everyone and their mother has heard me talk about the banana and nutella crepes I had while visiting Paris. When I sank my teeth into one of those babies outside of the Notre Dame, it was done for. I feel like I'm a dog that has a finely attuned senses to pick up the scent or sight of banana nutella crepes. Credit to my mom though because she found the crepe stand at the market.
Excitement! The crepes were nothing like the ones I had in Paris and the french men were chuckling at my mom and I speaking French under their breath for who knows what reason. But I was about to get chocolately, hazelnut goodness it didn't matter that those guys could have been saying "Ha ha these fools." among other more exciting things. Maybe like "And they think that this is nutella." It was nutella as best I could tell.
Is that a burrito? Sort of. That was my crepe. It was ok. I dare not say I was disappointed though because it was all just so exhilarating.
After we pick at the burrito crepe and look at the market, we head back to the hotel to rest for a bit because we have a big night ahead of us.
To the complimentary wine tasting at the hotel! The Hotel Palomar does this great thing where for an hour every night they host a nice little wine tasting (which really means drink as much as you can of the selected wines in the allotted hour, and go! Not for us though, we were responsible).
We drank and dashed because we had high priority dinner plans at The Purple Pig. Now this place is the newest, coolest, bee's knees restaurant in Chicago. Oh yeah and I have a friend working there, this fact shoots my cool factor up tenfold.
My mom and I went there at 6 o'clock on a Monday night and it was PACKED. My superstar connections got us seated in 15 minutes with about an hour wait for mere mortals. High off of how fucking awesome we were for being seated right away, with help from of the wine and bottle of Preseco we ordered (it was a celebration!), we indulged into the food of The Purple Pig. Oh my god was it good. You just need to go there and experience the culinary joys. But as my friend Gabie who works there said, you aren't going to find anything low fat on the menu.
The restaurant is tapas style. We ordered: the beets, the artichokes, the scallops and the roasted bone marrow. The beets were my favorite. I think I may actually have eaten the whole serving...sorry mom.
Our night is not over yet. From The Purple Pig we travel to The Second City to laugh. I had only been to the Second City once and loved it, so I had been wanting to go back. My mom and I had the best time and both of us agreed our mouths hurt from laughing so hard. I also love the thought that Tina Fey once preformed at the very theatre I was at. Have I mentioned I love Tina Fey?
After laughing for an hour we finally head back to the hotel and just collapse into this,
Everything about this Chicago trip was happy. I had the best time and it felt good to go there and not just shop the whole time, although we did some damage.
That being said within those 24 hours I must have overindulged a tinsy bit because I awoke the next morning and had many frantic questions and thoughts running through my mind like,
Is my stomach going to explode?
Why did I eat all that goat cheese last night?
I command that no one ever speak of goat cheese in front me again, or beets.
When will this end?
Why?
Damn you magician chefs at The Purple Pig luring me into your food.
Do I have to get out of bed?
I HATE FOOD AND WINE.
Obviously given my state I was the life of the party traveling back home that day.
And that concludes my trip to Chicago. I would recommend every place my mom and I visited to anyone looking for tips on where to stay, what to eat and what to see while in "the city."
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