Chicago - Thursday

I guess I should also mention that every day we started off with a complimentary breakfast at our hotel, the Dana Hotel and Spa. The hotel was very nice, and the breakfast was just enough to get us going - bagels, fruit, cereal, juice. I just realized how much it probably looks like they paid me to mention that, and I wish they would, but our blog doesn't get enough traffic for them to care anyway.

On Thursday I wanted to watch some of the basketball tournament since A&M was playing, and Kimmy was nice enough to watch with me since I went to Oprah with her, so after we stopped by the CTA headquarters to buy another one-day visitor pass for the trains, we went to the Rock Bottom Brewpub. It was tricky to get to because the street it's on is under construction, but we found our way in, and so did a whole lot of people. The place was packed with people on their long tournament lunch breaks, and they had some nice lunch specials there. I got a pint of their $3 "construction special" Irish Red beer - they brew about 10 different beers there, there are rows of fermenters behind the bar area and it smells like yeast when you first walk in until you get used to it - and we ordered some asiago cheese dip with bread. The dip was really strong, I liked it but couldn't eat that much of it. After halftime, Kimmy ordered a Ceasar salad and I got their lunch special slider burgers. The food was nothing special, but the Aggies won, so I was ok. Their beer was pretty good though, so I'd recommend it for that I suppose.

After the game, we rode the El over to Chicago's Chinatown and walked around there. It's not huge, about 3 blocks along one street plus a little outdoor mall area called Chinatown square, but it was fun to check out some of the shops. Our Chicago book also recommended eating dim sum at this place called Won Kow, so we stopped in there for an afternoon snack to get out of the cold and drink some hot tea and eat too many dumplings.

That night, we didn't feel like going far, and I still wanted an Italian Beef, so we walked over to a place called Portillo's. Kimmy went for another round of chicago style hot dogs (Gold Coast was still the best), and I finally got my italian beef, dipped, with hot peppers. Dipped means they toss the entire bun into jus, the sauce made from the beef drippings, which makes for a pretty soggy sandwich, which was tough to eat, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's a simple sandwich, just roast beef on a soggy bun with some giardiniera, and I'd prefer a cheesesteak most days, but it's Chicago, not Philly.

Friday was our travel day, so we didn't eat anything interesting - security took a while at the airport so we stopped and got McDonald's and rushed to eat it on the plane before we lost our tray tables to take-off time. I want to mention that I actually really like McDonald's Chicken Ranch BLT sandwich. The chicken is good and the lettuce and tomato are pretty fresh for a fast food place. We had a 3 hour layover in Detroit, had a sushi snack at the airport and ate dinner at an airport sports bar right by our gate.

We really enjoyed our trip overall. The food was good and we wore ourselves out with the sightseeing.