Memorial Day Long Weekend

The Memorial day long weekend is a significant long weekend here in the states. The official significance of memorial day is to recognise the nation's thousands of combat veterens "which has a history dating back to the Civil war". I'm not going to make any political comments about the US's more recent combat initiatives as my opinions are best discussed offline. More information about Memorial weekend can be found here.

There are 2 other unofficial significances of this weekend:

1. Start of Summer (and also summer hours at work)
2. First long weekend of the year

To #1 it's great summer is here. I love snow and prefer cold weather to extreme heat but 25degC is a perfect temperature to do things. Chicago comes alive in the summer and there are festivals nearly every weekend in the summer season. Metromix, the Chicago Tribune's entertainment section is chocos with things do in the summer season - Blues festival, taste of Chicago just to name a few.

To the later well long weekends are few and far between here. Not like when I was back in Adelaide. Public holidays are the shiznic.

So with so much significance - official and unofficial - what did I do this weekend? Not really that much - at least nothing out of the norm. Friday I went to Korean BBQ for dinner (I'd review the place but can't remember the name) and then back to Fenwick's for a bit of 3 way xbox style. Saturday was spent playing a bit of sport, had a below par lunch at Pita House (doesn't deserve a review but I'm particular when it comes to yiros) and talking with my family for most of the night. Catching up with my sis & parents was great. I really miss them all. For Sunday there were high hopes of a big night and it started well with some decent fish'n'chips at an English pub called The Red Lion down in Lincoln Park. Being a bit of a college town we were hoping for a few places to be going off. But alas nothing was happening and after walking around in circles for a while we decided to cut our loses and call it a night. Monday was spent mostly doing work. How sad. But maybe it's kharma catching up with me. So all those hours that I spent at work doing other things besides project work have caught up. But why is it that I only get told on a Friday afternoon that they need something by Tuesday next week?

So in summary the weekend was slightly wasted. However this week I'll be flying out to LA for 2 reasons:

1. Holiday
2. Meet SY & drag her back to Chicago :)

I'm really looking forward to #2 but #1 will be good too. I've transitted through LA a few times but never really stopped off and checked it out.

Well that's about it. Gotta get back to some work. Happy Memorial Day!!

My starbucks drink

In the movie Zoolander there's a line where Derek orders an "orange mocha frappuccino". Sad to say I'm worse than Derek. Here's one of my choice orders that I get at starbucks:

Can I please have a grande mocha frappuccino caramel affagato style with no whip. What a mouthful.

Lamb on a stick

Why can't Americans make yiros properly? I mean how difficult is it to use real meat instead of this processed junk. This drives me nuts every time I have a hankerin' for a yiros/giros/falaffel. I haven't found a place yet that uses REAL meat. Come on.

Ahhh I feel better now. :)

Let's get a Taco

I've been a bit slack updating my blog but for the few of you who check out my blog stay tuned!! This long weekend I promise to put some time into updating it.

So I stumbled across this blog whilst IMing the other day - Let's get a Taco. Rather low key right now but I'm going to plug it. Make sure you read all of the blog coz the best part is at the end. The Fav places in Sydney & Adelaide must be checked out! I personally haven't had the pleasure of checking out the places in Sydney but you gotta respec them when a guy as classy as Nav plugs them.

Wog Boy Weekend

Another great weekend in Chicago. Seems like everything gets better when the weather is decent. By decent I mean 70degF (~21degC). Friday was a half day at work and the test team went to watch Star Wars Episode III:Revenge of the Sith.

After that I caught up with the usual crew for the "no cooking fridays" dinner at Jockey's Wok'n'Roll (see review below). We then headed downtown to catch up with the Italy test team (Titziana, Levia, Gianluca & Antinino). We met up with them at Blue Chicago. This was my first trip to a Blues bar and it was pretty interesting. I'm looking forward to checking out the Chicago Blues festival coming up this summer. It was disappointing that they piked so early though. My expectations were built up. I was keen on big night. Especially coz we got such an awesome carpark. So anyway after we exchanged our 'ciaos' we tried to get into Y bar but they knocked us back coz of white sneakers. Come on. I hate when clubs are like that. So we ended up at Alumni Club in Schaumburg for a nite cap.

Saturday morning was spent watching the FA cup final. Arsenal won on penalties. The rest of the day was spent shopping for sporting stuff. I ended up with a frisbee and now am addicted. I can't get enough...I just want to keep practising to be able to throw that damn plastic plate perfectly.

Sunday I spent doing the errands and baking a sticky date pudding. Pete was hosting a Wog Boy movie night. It was great to hear some really Australian accents and slang. Get tzatziki with it is all I have to say :). As for the food it was an awesome feast - REAL greek salad made by a Greek, FW's famous rotisserie chicken, Pete's trusty bolognese & stickdate pudding for dessert. Sensational feast and the complements were flying - are rightly so. Everything was fantastic - great work Brigitte, Yannis, Fenwick & Pete - everyone's cuisine reigned supreme on Sunday. Mouth watering pictures below.

[Review] Jockey's Wok'n'Roll

When I first heard the name of this restaurant it didn't inspire me with much confidence. Despite the funny name, it is pretty decent Chinese food. I've been here for yum cha and also for dinner. The yum cha selection is pretty limited - at least they have the staples; har gow, siew mai, char siew bao etc. Sometimes the steamed dishes are only luke warm though.

When I went for dinner the other night we went with the 'lobster special'. Basically we got to choose 2 dishes from the menu and receive a 'complementary' lobster dish. We ended up choosing salt and pepper squid & roast duck. The lobster was done with ginger & spring onions. All the servings were pretty large and at the end we were all pretty stuffed.

Service 2.5/5
The service is ok. Nothing special, sometimes their a bit slow.

Food 3/5
Pretty good food. Yum cha is ok and the dinner dishes are well cooked.

Value 4/5
This place is good value for money. Yum cha typically costs just under $10 and the lobster dinner special set us back $20pp including bubble teas.

Overall 3.5/5
The yum chas isn't anything to write home about and the dinner is good value. However this place is the best chinese that I've had out here in the 'burbs. It's a bit of a compromise to driving to Chinatown. Recommended.

Bon Voyage!

In a week's time SY will be temporarily departing Adelaide for 6mths. Rest assured that she'll be back around Christmas (the same time when I'll be back). So let's all wish her a very safe journey to the US where she'll be living with me for the next 6mths. I can't wait for her to arrive - so much so I'll be flying out to LA to meet her. I know you all in Adl will miss her - I know coz I've been apart from SY for the last few months and have missed her immensely.

Where we go from there is anyone's guess. We don't know ourselves so please stay tuned to this blog and we'll keep you updated (if the 20 same questions come up again perhaps another FAQ will serve well....)

[Review] Giacomo's Ristorante

As mentioned in a previous post, we headed to Giacomo's Ristorante for FW's birthday celebration.

From the outside this place looked liked your typical pub. However on the inside you could tell it was an Italian joint. It was what I'd call a 'genuinly friendly' restaurant where the waiters actually appear to be interested in what you have to say. Also we were greeted by both of the owners/mgrs which was another nice thing.

The menu had a great selection of your tradional Italian fare. I haven't been to Italy yet but Pete told us it was authentic. We decided on sharing an anitpasta between the 6 of us and I chose Veal Florentine for main (american:entree). They also had italian bread with a parmaesan/herb dry dip (similar to dukkah) which I was also told was what they serve in Italy. Antipasto was nice, not quite up there with Cibo's in Adelaide but very good none the less. They didn't have the frutata/quiche/risotto ball things that I like but the cold meats & veg was good. My main was huge - and it came with a side of marinara pasta that I could have done without. Very nice mozerella cheese & the veal was cooked just right in the white wine sauce. The popular main of the night was lobster ravioli in a cream sauce topped with prawns (american:shrimp). Yannis was generous enough to share a piece and it was delicious & heavy. We were all stuffed by the end of the main, but being a special occasion we couldn't pass up dessert. I went for the tradional tiramisu which was done really well.

Service - 4.5/5
- Friendly, not overbearing and dealt with out complicated multi way splitting of the bill. Good knowledge of the menu & specials.

Food - 4.5/5
- Good quality fresh authentic food. Extensive menu but not overly big.

Value - 4/5
- I thought that the price reflected the quality of the food. For the 3 courses it ended up costing around $40 including a beer (Peroni of course :)).

Overall
- I enjoyed my dining experience here. I'd come back again as well. As is too often the case in America, Italian restaraunts think that quanitity means a happy customer. However this place delivered on both quality and quantity. Highly Recommended

Eat, Play, Eat, Play, Eat, Sleep

Eat, play & sleep. These 3 words pretty much summed up my weekend. Friday spent the early part of the evening playing table tennis & foozball at work. For all of you out there thinking "you slacker" it was important for me to play coz my mgr was also playing. Headed out to India House for some good Indian food. 4 curries & 7 servings of naan. How did we all managed to spend the rest of the evening having 4 xbox way with each other?

Saturday was spent down in Evanston. Can't believe I'm about to say this but it started with a massive and tasty vegetarian meal, followed by frisbee, bubbletea & chocolate, table tennis and finally lebanese food for dinner.

Sunday was Missy's Bday (Happy Birthday Melissa!! I hope you enjoy your deluxe foot spa). Had a great time playing texas hold em. Pity I had to leave early to do some things around the apartment otherwise I probably would have helped myself to another serving of that Birthday cake.

So eat, play & sleep - that made for a good wkend. Hopefully next weekend's theme will involve the word drinks :)

Happy Birthday Fenwick

It was FW's 26th Bday on 11 May so let's all hope that his Bday wishes come true!

As is the requirement, FW brought in 24 Krispy Kreme donuts. These are the king of donuts. IMHO original glaze fresh off the conveyor belt is the best - still warm and slightly gooey with a great sugar glaze.

Birthday celebrations were held at Giacomo's Ristorante - stay tuned for my review!

Happy Birthday Brian!!

Just want to let you all know it's Brian's Birthday on 12th May. Please send him lots of gifts :).

Also you can checkout his blog at http://pawnster.blogspot.com/

National No Diet Day

Today was national no diet day. I treated myself (although didn't really deserve it) to a burger & fries from Portillos. Another interesting fact is that May is "National self help Month".

Blog plugs

Now that a few of my buddies have blogs up I thought it would be time to give them a plug.

The first blog I ever read (and still check regularly) is daecks.blogspot.com. PK's blog was the one that got me onto this phenomonen.

Perhaps two of the most intelligent people I know - Pawnstar(aka Larry) & Yauipop - also have blogs up now too! Check out Pawnstar's at pawnster.blogspot.com. Yauipop is still yet to enlighten us on "who's creaming" so you'll have to stay tuned to yauipop.blogspot.com to find out. Hope you guys will keep your blog regularly updated.

Cuts of Beef

I meant to put this up a while ago, but following my trip to the Black Ram, I thought I should educate myself one ALL the cuts of beef - gotta make the most out of the cow :)

So all you beef fans - educate yourself here.

Foie Gras

Hmm I know I mentioned that I like this stuff before and that they use it quite often on Iron Chef. What I didn't know is how this stuff is made. I always just thought that it was French duck liver pate. Wrong. Well sorta wrong. For those of you with strong opinions on animal cruelty please stop reading.

Foie Gras is made by force feeding ducks/geese with ridiculous amounts of food (+0.5kg/day). To do this they shove a tube down the bird's throat and inject the food. This copious amount of food causes the bird's liver to swell beyond normal proportions. And thus you have foie gras (after you kill the duck of course). There's a whole animal activist site called gourmetcruelty dedicated to it. What is distubing is the video they show of the bird getting force fed.

For someone who only buys free range eggs this is an interesting thought. I'm not sure how it's going to influence my culinary decision making....I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Review] The Black Ram

So another thing that I wanted out of this blog was to write reviews of all the restaurants that I go to. Not sure if it'll be useful for anyone but I do consider myself a enjoyer of gastronomical delights - basically I like to eat. My reviews are going to be pretty informal without a consitent structure. I'll just write about what stuck in my mind.

So let's kick off eating my way through Chicago's restaurants. On Friday I went to a steak and seafood place call The Black Ram. According to Metromix they reckon the mains were $8-$15. They were wrong. It was more like $25-$35. When we (Fenwick & I) walked in I immediately was sus about the price range of the place - white linen tables, dimmed lighting and a good ambience. The menu featured mainly steak and seafood - exactly what we came for. A good selection of quality cuts of steak - New York Strip, fillet mignon, sirloin etc. Seafood choices were a bit more limited but featured king prawns and hallibut.

We decided to skip appetizers (Aus translation - entrees) because most cuts of meat were over 8oz. I ordered the beef wellington which is a personal favourite. I wanted to see if this place could justify it's price. Beef wellington is simply a fillet mignon (tenderloin) with foie gras ontop and baked in pastry - rich stuff. As usual I asked for my steak to be done medium. When it came out it was larger that I expected - around 12oz I reckon. The steak was done just right, there was a generous helping of foie gras and the pastry was nice and buttery. It was complemented with a nice tomato/cream sauce. The steak was well cooked throughout and was 'good quality'. I thoroughly enjoyed the meal although was stuffed at the end.

Time to sum things up:

Service: 4.5/5
- The waitress wasn't overbearing, had good knowledge of the menu and didn't rush us off even after we had paid for the bill.

Food: 4/5
- Good quality meat and well cooked. The tacky salad at the beginning let me down but probably my fault for choosing it. Quantity was more than I should have eaten.

Value: 3.5/5
- This place isn't cheap but I don't mind paying high prices - provided I get what I pay for. So it gets a 3 for the quality being refected by the price. This place was a refreshing change from your typical American franchise restauran so it gets another 0.5.

Overall - I enjoyed my experience there. Nice relaxed atmosphere and good quality good. I don't think that I'll be heading back there in a hurry though. However this is because there are plenty of other places to try and I can't eat rich food like that that often. Recommended.

Fusion or Bastardisation?

Recently I've been watching a lot of the Japanese series "Iron Chef" (thanks Brian for meticulously downloading all of them). It's a great show and you should try and watch the Japanese version and not the newer American one. They get to use the most expensive and sort after ingredients - birds nest, shark fin, foie gras etc. They do some great fusion cooking, especially when the feature ingredient is not normally in their cusine realm. So this gets me thinking about what I made for dinner...

So below is a pic of Saturday night's dinner. Basically it's stir fried beef w/ Veg (Zucchini, capsicum and onion). I'm eating it with avacado on wholemeal tortillas. The beef has been marinated with soy and oyster sauce. So basically I've fused together asian flavours and served it up mexican style - fusion or bastardisation - that is the question :)