My Kind of Town

Friday, April 25

After saying goodbye to the aunties, I loaded up my lone suitcase (R took the other two bags when he flew home yesterday) and headed back to O'Hare to return the car. It was pouring rain when I got to the gas station (figures!) in Park Ridge, but I managed to fill up and stay fairly dry, thanks to my spiffy new raincoat! From the Multi-Modal Facility, I rode the tram back to Terminal 2 and then walked to the Blue Line station to take the train downtown. $5 for the CTA vs. $50 for an Uber - no brainer!

About 45 minutes later, I exited at Monroe St. and walked two blocks east to the Palmer House Hilton, my home base for the next 5 nights. I've never had the occasion to stay downtown before, so I'm looking forward to playing tourist while I'm attending the conference at McCormick Place.

The Palmer House lobby is gorgeous!

A few of my colleagues arrived later in the afternoon. We walked over to see Millennium Park and Cloud Gate (aka the Bean), then continued up Michigan Ave.

As the unofficial tour guide, I steered them to Lou Malnati's for Chicago-style pizza, of course. There was a bit of a wait, so we decided to check out the Starbucks Reserve Roastery further north for my friend who collects their destination espresso cups. Happy to oblige someone else's obsession!

By the time we got back, our table was ready - so glad that I could introduce them to the best pizza IMHO, and that they agreed with me!

Saturday, April 26

We didn't need to check in to the conference until this afternoon, so my friend T and I decided to take a Chicago River Boat Architecture Tour. We walked from the hotel to their boat slip on McClurg Ct, arriving about 9:30AM. It was a little chilly at first, but by the time we finished, the weather was perfect! 

The guide did a great job narrating the tour and giving a lot of architectural information about the buildings we passed in a really engaging way. I was engrossed in taking photos, so unfortunately I can't recall most of the details. That's why there's Google image search...

Love the visual effect of the different colors of glass

Wrigley Building

Looking east down the Chicago River towards Lake Michigan

Nicknamed "The Tuning Fork" for the sloping walls at its base

Seeing our reflection in the windows of 150 N. Riverside

Lots of corner offices in the Bank of America Financial Center

This will always be the Sears Tower to me

300 South Wacker Drive

Marina Towers (left) and the Dearborn Street Bridge

When the boys were little, we did the Shoreline Sightseeing Architecture Tour with R's parents and brother in 2007. Now that both have grown up to be civil engineers, one of whom will be working as a structural engineer, I think it would be really fun to go again with them when we are all in Chicago together. But next time I would definitely want to do the Chicago Architecture Center river cruise aboard the First Lady.

As we were walking back along the River Esplanade, we were in the right place at the right time to see the raising of the Michigan Ave. bridge to allow a boat to pass.

Well, we thought we were lucky until we realized that we were stuck on the north side of the river until the bridge was lowered. So we continued walking west and crossed over on the Wabash Ave. bridge instead.

A couple of weeks ago I made dinner reservations at Duck Duck Goat in the Fulton Market District. Stephanie Izard, winner of Bravo's Top Chef (2008) and Iron Chef (2017), is the executive chef/owner of four restaurants in Chicago, all playing on the "goat" theme because her last name is French for a type of mountain goat. Her other restaurants include Girl & the Goat, Little Goat Diner, and Cabra. It was great to have a big group so that we could try lots of different dishes. What an excellent meal!

From top: jiaozhi (potstickers), veggie spring rolls
char siu pork bao, xiao long bao (soup dumplings), chilly chili noodles
green beans with cashews, duck fried rice, fiery shrimp
mapo doufu, chongqing chicken, xi'an goat slap noodles

Although we ubered from the hotel to the restaurant, everyone was up for taking the train back to the hotel, so we all walked to the Morgan St. station and rode the Green Line back to Adams/Wabash. Back at the hotel, we decided to get dessert and coffee in the lobby. More specifically, we wanted to try the Palmer House Brownie, invented in the kitchen here by Palmer House Pastry Chef Joseph Sehl for the 1893 World's Fair at the request of Bertha Palmer.

Mmmm, good!

Sunday, April 27

I was at McCormick Place for the conference all day, so I won't bother to write anything about that. What's worth mentioning is the oatmeal I had for breakfast in the Palmer House. I've never had anything like it - super rich and creamy!

In the evening, the whole entourage from my department had a group dinner at The Publican, also located in Fulton Market (same block as Duck Duck Goat). We were served family style, but I didn't take any food pics because we were so busy chatting. Someone should have warned us about the side effects of eating too many sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes), though... 😲

Monday, April 28

On Saturday I started seeing a huge new floater in my left eye along with some flashes. Worried that it was a retinal detachment, I reached out to one of our college friends who is an ophthalmologist, and he offered to see me in his office first thing on Monday.

So, I got up early this morning and took the train up to Evanston, missing the morning sessions at the conference. Thankfully, after examining my eye, Dr. W said that it was a vitreous detachment and not a cause for concern. Whew! I was already imagining worst case scenarios where I was going to have to stay in Chicago even longer and/or go home via Amtrak.

On the way back, the Purple Line train I boarded at Davis St. only went as far as Howard, so I had to wait for a Red Line train to take me the rest of the way back downtown to the hotel. After grabbing my stuff for the conference, I had just enough time to get a quick lunch from Raising Cane's on Michigan Ave. before walking up to the Millennium Park station. The Metra Electric train took me directly to McCormick Place. Getting some good use out of my Ventra app!

Tuesday, April 29

After a busy morning at the poster session, a group of us went to Ricobene's for lunch. I had never been to the restaurant before, but since it was only about a mile away in Bridgeport and I have only heard good things about their breaded steak sandwich, I convinced my colleagues to check it out. Definitely worthy of the hype - yum!

Not a fan of hot giardiniera, so I ordered my breaded steak sandwich with just mozzarella and red gravy

For our last meal on the company dime, I organized another dinner at Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba in Lincoln Park. 

Spanish meatballs "al jerez", tortilla española (potato & onion omelette), paella
fried calamari, sangria, patatas bravas, bacon-wrapped dates

More sangria, baked goat cheese
stuffed mushrooms, croquetas, marinated Spanish olives 

Before calling it a night, we headed over to Amorino for some expensive, but delicious gelato.

 

Beautiful presentation!

Wednesday, April 30

Since there were no presentations that I needed to cover this morning, I worked from my hotel room, organizing my photos and notes from the conference until it was time to check-out. Once my colleagues returned, we took the Blue Line to O'Hare for our flight back to LAX.

After nearly two weeks away from home, I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight!