SNAPSHOTS | CHICAGO 2023 | DAY 5 + 6

 

Our time in Chicago is sadly coming to an end. Despite the late night, we still woke up bright and early, ready to tackle our last full day in Chicago.

For a quick breakfast, we stopped into Good Ambler, a cafe, bakery, and chocolatier all in one. It's quite spacious inside and we saw lots of people setting up shop with their laptops. We had AYCE sushi on our lunch radar, so we shared a ham & cheese croissant to preserve stomach space. Still warm, the croissant was super buttery and flaky. Not a bad start to the day.

Next on our itinerary, we took an Uber over to the Garfield Park Conservatory. A coworker strongly recommended it and I'm glad we followed her advice. Tickets are free (donations welcome) but reservations are required. We simply booked one in the car on the way over.  

The gardens are gorgeous and absolutely stunning. The greenery is so lush and there's something to see around every corner. 

 

 

Like the Muttart Conservatory in Edmonton, there's different "rooms" with different climates and plants.

 

I highly recommend visiting the Garfield Park Conservatory! Take a break from the hustle and bustle of the city and get lost in nature for a bit. Especially since it's free!

After the conservatory, we took an Uber over to Wicker Park. It's a cool neighbourhood with lots of trendy shops and restaurants.

 

 

Lunch was at Sushi Taku, a popular destination for AYCE sushi. Lunch was a very reasonable $22.99 per person while dinner is $31.99.

 

Unfortunately there's no sliced sashimi options on the AYCE menu, only sashimi salad. They do give you quite a bit of sashimi so no complaints there. There's a few wisps of mixed greens underneath but the salad is mostly made up of chopped cubes of salmon, tuna, and yellowtail. Most likely scraps and tail-end pieces. The sashimi was fresh, dressed with soy sauce and wasabi aioli. LT also wanted the seaweed salad which was pretty standard but they also give you quite a bit.

 

For appetizers, we got the tempura, soft shell crab, and takoyaki. The tempura came with 2 pieces of shrimp and 4 vegetables. I wish that they could've been ordered individually because it ended up being a struggle to finish. The dipping sauce was quite bland as well. The soft shell crab and takoyaki were definitely better options.

 

For sushi, we ordered 2 unagi, 2 salmon, and 2 yellowtail nigiri. The rolls we chose were the color dragon roll and the fire phoenix roll. All of the ingredients were fresh and they didn't pack too much rice. However, we still ended up super full and had to tap out out after the first round. I think the move for next time would just be ordering as many plates of sashimi salad as our stomachs could handle.

 

It ended up being a beautiful day for exploring and walking! Wicker Park definitely reminded me of a much bigger Whyte Ave.

 

We didn't really have a plan and just stopped into random bookstores and shops that caught our eye.

Our final stop was Eli's Ark for ice cream. Lots of unique flavours, but the main draw is their animal decorations! You can choose between a bear, monkey, dog, panda, koala, pig, llama, or unicorn. They use chocolates, candies, cookies, marshmallows, and meringues to make your ice cream come to life.

I chose a pig while LT got a panda! My ice cream flavour was pretty in pink, roasted wild strawberries, yakult, and rose essence. Although it wasn't super creamy, the ice cream still had good texture and wasn't too sweet. LT got the kookie monster with a panna cotta cream base, oreos, biscoff, and nankhatai cookies.

 

We rested back at the hotel before our final dinner reservation at Girl & The Goat. Girl & The Goat is owned by Stephanie Izard, who won season 4 of Top Chef, the first female chef to do so. I remember watching Top Chef religiously during earlier seasons and was excited to try another Top Chef alum's restaurant.

 

We booked an earlier reservation so that we had time to pack later that evening. The restaurant was quite busy and bustling. Our server recommended getting 5-6 dishes to share, but we stuck with 4 and was already quite full by the end. 

The roasted pig face ($24.00) is the signature dish of the restaurant and my favourite of the night. The dish is prepared using, you guessed it, a whole pig's head. The cheeks, snout, and tongue are rolled up like porchetta and braised. They slice it up and crisp them in their wood oven. The two medallions get stacked with fried potato sticks and a sunny side up egg. There's an array of sauces including a tamarind vinaigrette and a red wine-maple gastrique. The pork medallions are so tender, fatty, and unctuous. The potato crisps were basically like hickory sticks, providing some good texture, while the creamy egg helped combine everything together.

 

We had to try a 'goat' dish and went for the goat empanadas ($19.00). They were garnished with pickled kumquats, piparra peppers, and idiazabal cheese. If anyone is weary of eating 'goat' meat, I would say it tasted pretty indistinguishable in the empanada. In fact, the flavour reminded me of Zap'ems. You know, those microwavable taco bites? Of course, these were way better than microwave dinner, but I couldn't help be reminded of the taco seasoning flavour. 

 

I also had high hopes for the sautéed green beans ($18.00) which are highly lauded online. The green beans are sauteed with shallots, drizzled with a fish sauce vinaigrette, and topped with toasted cashews. The green beans had some good char and wok hei, but tasted overcooked and over-seasoned. They were quite limp and mushy and a bit too salty. 

 

Our final dish was the crispy braised lamb ($28.00), with 12 spice bagna cauda and grilled radicchio. The nuggets of lamb were indeed crispy and tender. The flavour of the sauce reminded me of bun bo hue, as it had a prominent five spice flavour. The beans were unexpectedly crispy too.
 

Banksy, is that you?

 

Before we called it a night, we still needed to use up our free dining credit at the hotel. We stopped in the lobby for dessert at Fora, a contemporary, global-inspired restaurant and patio. They're pretty much open all day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

 

 

We ordered the arroz con leche ($12.00) which is basically Mexican rice pudding. Rice pudding is a simple, humble dessert, but this was elevated into something much more delicious. Surrounding the thick and creamy pudding was a ring of passionfruit curd. It brightened up the dish with its tangy, sweet flavour. There was also some candied cashews for texture and beautifully caramelized bananas. I have an affinity for banana desserts and this was no exception.

The next morning, we woke up at 3:30am, checked out, and headed to the airport. We thought we needed to be at the airport 3 hours early, but it's probably not necessary that early in the morning.

 

 

Nothing hits the spot quite like a McDonald's breakfast.

Thank you Chicago for an unforgettable trip!

- CT

SNAPSHOTS | CHICAGO 2023 | DAY 4

Today was the day. D-Day (iykyk). I didn't actually plan on going to Chicago just for the pizza and architecture (although it was a bonus!). The sole purpose of this trip was to finally meet the love of my life. Or you know, see them perform in concert. Same thing.

 

We started the day nice and early to make it to this restaurant right when they opened. Kasama is a modern Filipino restaurant and bakery located in Chicago's Ukrainian Village. Run by a husband-wife duo, the name Kasama means "together" in Tagalog. They're actually the world's first Michelin-starred Filipino restaurant with one star to their name. 

 

During the day, Kasama is a first-come, first-serve cafe, while dinner is a multi-course, fine-dining tasting menu. We arrived a couple of minutes past 9 but there were already a few people waiting outside. We were afraid that the restaurant was already full but the line was deceiving since they only allow one party at the ordering counter at a time.  

At the counter, you're greeted by a beautiful showcase filled with mouthwatering pastries. Seriously, how could you possibly choose?

For actual meals, Kasama serves Filipino breakfast, adobo, and breakfast sandwiches. There's even a Filipino twist on an Italian beef with shaved pork adobo and longanisa sausage.

We got the Filipino breakfast which comes with garlic rice, a fried egg, and your choice of longanisa sausage or tocino. We got a combo of both meats for $18. The longanisa is sweet and garlicky while the tocino reminded me of char sui. It had that similar sweet glaze on the outside and juicy, fatty interior. Overall, a simple, filling meal.

I wasn't overly impressed by the breakfast plate, but the pastries... wow. I now understood why they have a Michelin star. First up, the black truffle croissant ($14). Super buttery, flaky, and filled with black truffle and Delice de Bourgogne cheese. The cheese was super creamy and rich, while the truffle was fragrant but not overpowering. They also top the croissant with honey, truffle oil, shaved black truffle and pearl sugar. It's a textural masterpiece with the pops of pearl sugar. If you're a fan of sweet and salty, it's absolute perfection. Quite possibly my favourite bite of the trip.

We also got the ube and huckleberry basque cake ($7.00). They describe it as a pound cake filled with ube pastry cream and huckleberries, which are similar to blueberries but a bit more sour. Rather than a cake, it reminded me of a cross between a cookie and a tart. It was crispy and chewy and positively delightful. The ube wasn't super obvious to me but the huckleberries were sweet and tart. So good.

Straight from Kasama, we took an Uber over to 360 Chicago in the John Hancock Centre (now called 875 North Michigan Avenue). It's an observation deck located on the 94th floor of the building. We debated between 360 and Skydeck, but we thought 360 would have better views of the skyline and Lake Michigan. It was pretty pricey and I would recommend buying tickets online for a slight discount.

 

It was nice to go early since there wasn't very many people around. The views are unreal.

 

Here you can see Navy Pier in the background.

 

 

We definitely lucked out with the weather on this day since the conditions were very clear.

 

After we finished with pictures, we spent the rest of the morning walking around the shops and malls in the area. There's a particular street filled with all the luxury brands, some I've never even heard of. I've never felt so poor.

LT had to do a bit of work this day so we headed back to the hotel. I had a quick nap before we ventured out again late afternoon. For a recharge, we walked to Sawada Coffee, a chill funky cafe owned by world-renowned barista Hiroshi Sawada. We shared an iced oat latte, Tokyo style where they add a shot of molasses in. The coffee was sweet and bitter, and reminded me very much of Vietnamese iced coffee.

 

The seating area is huge and grungy. They actually share the space with Green Street Smoked Meats, a Texas style BBQ joint. This is where we had our early dinner since we needed protein to last through the night. Just head straight to the back where you order from the counter. They'll slice the meat right in front of you and prepare your platter. Everything else is pretty much self-serve.

 

 

We ordered a 1/2 pound of sliced beef brisket ($16.95), a pulled pork sandwich ($13.95), and elote style corn ($7.00). The brisket was pretty good, and the fattier parts were especially good. I felt the pulled pork sandwich was a bit dry and they definitely misheard me when I tried to choose coleslaw instead of pickles (#introvertproblems). The elote corn sounded promising on paper, but it was almost too cheesy for me. 

 

 

Here's a story for you. As we were walking back to the hotel, I got pooped on by a bird. No joke. It was quite traumatic. Thankfully LT had a wet wipe on her and it was just on the arm of my rain jacket. They do say bird poop is good luck. This came in clutch later.

To forget about my troubles, we popped into Do-Rite Donuts since it was on the way back. Do-Rite is a Chicago-based donut chain that also sells breakfast and fried chicken sandwiches. I didn't realize how much of a donut city Chicago is but they have quite a few homegrown donut shops.  

We got a cinnamon old-fashioned and a vanilla bean glazed. Perhaps the cashier sensed my bird poop trauma, but he only charged us for one donut! Thank you donut man! The vanilla bean glazed was our favourite of the two. It was your classic yeast doughnut. Soft, fluffy, and not too sweet. The old-fashioned had a crunchy exterior, although slightly dry. It was rolled in cinnamon sugar.

 

We had a quick refresh back at the hotel before it was concert time! It took forever to get an Uber, since the concert was at Allstate Arena, right by O'Hare airport. It probably took an hour to get there since there was tons of traffic. Do you see this line?!  Good thing we left early.

 

We actually befriended a couple of girls in line who travelled from Florida to see the show. The gates opened at 6:30pm and we got in around 6:45pm. We made a beeline to one of the merch booths upstairs. The line winded all around the small space and as the concert got closer, the anxiety kicked in. We literally reached the front of the line minutes before the concert was due to start. I had my hopes on one specific shirt but everything was pretty much sold out. Our new friends asked if it was possible to buy the shirts on the display and thank God they did! I managed to get the exact shirt in the size I wanted. Thank you bird for your lucky poop! After we paid, we literally ran to our seats halfway across the arena.   

 

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to ... AGUST D! 

TLDR; I'm a big, big fan. 

I'm been a BTS ARMY since 2016, during their Blood Sweet & Tears era. In the K-Pop world, it's customary (but certainly not necessary) to have a "bias," or your favourite member in the group. Since day 1, my bias has always been SUGA so it felt like fate that my first BTS concert experience would be his solo concert, under his alias AGUST D. We had plans to see BTS in 2020 (in Toronto), but we all know what happened next. (I prefer not to talk about it.) This felt like one of my last opportunities to see them before they all have to complete their mandatory military enlistment. LT also pointed out that we only had to focus on one person during the concert, rather than 7 people who can't stand still.

 

The concert was simply amazing and the crowd was deafening. Seriously, I might have permanent hearing loss. He played 22 songs in total with the concert lasting 2 hours. Life Goes On is my personal favourite, along with Snooze, Amygdala, Haegeum ... the list goes on and on. I never wanted it to end! 

 

We eventually did have to leave and walked with a bunch of people to a nearby hotel. It felt like a better chance to get an Uber from there than at the arena. Still hyped from the concert, I don't think I went to bed until 2:30am. I'd do it all over again if I could.

- CT