Adventures in eating - Chicago Edition

When we were little, Gigi, Cookie and I started our sentences with “When we hit our twenties we’ll be independent and get our own apartments”, “When we have our own jobs and make oodles of money, we’ll spend it all on guilt-free shoe shopping”, “When we become young ladies we’ll get a stylish hair-cut and not the eighties bob” and finally, “When we all have jobs, we’ll go on a fabulous vacation and it’ll be just the three of us”.

  

The twenties came around and we’d still not embarked on that trip, just the three of us. Somehow as we got older it never seemed to materialize. We’d moved away, each living in a different country sometimes. Either one of us was in school, or one of us was going home to spend our Christmas break or we didn’t have the money. Most of the time, it was the money. You see, all three of us weren’t at the “have our own jobs, apartments, and making lots of cash” stage of our lives yet.

One day, we found out that one of us was going to be hitched soon. This made us frantically go down the list of things we were yet to do and there it was – ‘Take a fabulous vacation together. Just the three of us”.

And so impulse took over and we decided on Chicago in April.

Ofcourse the first thing on our to-do list was to settle on the outfits, the shoes, clothes, the accessories. In case you were wondering - Yes! we have our priorities straight.

Gigi and I could barely contain ourselves as we took the flight out to see Cookie in Chi city. This trip meant so many things to us because, One, it was part of our to-do list; Two, Gigi would be married soon so it would be her last trip as a single woman; Three, We were also going to meet an old friend and have a mini re-union. Four and most importantly, this trip entailed an adventure-filled food fest for the foodie in us.

S.T, our dear married friend would join us on our little adventure as her husband generously agreed to watch the children for two days and loan her to us for a fun night on the town.

Cookie being the resident Chicagoan mapped out a very detailed itinerary. We had Thursday night to ourselves. Come Friday we’d hit the popular tourist spots, museums, the planetarium etc., meet with S.T and the four of us would finish the night with reservations at dessert extraordinaire, TRU. Per the vacation schedule for Saturday, we’d putter around the Magnificent mile until noon and then we we’d be off to literally eat our way through Chicago with a walking food tour of the Gold Coast, Old Town and Lincoln neighborhoods. At 6pm on Saturday evening, we’d set sail for our dinner cruise along the waterfront with a view of the Chicago skyline. Sunday would be spent catching up on whatever we didn’t get to do and at noon we’d bid each other farewell and fly back to wherever we call home at the moment.

That was the plan.

However, yours truly is not a morning person or someone with the discipline to follow an itinerary, so I unintentionally caused the group to veer off schedule a bit.

So although we didn’t get to meander down the magnificent mile and hit all the boutique stores, we got to do everything else that Cookie had painstakingly planned for the four of us.

My TRU calling...

One beautiful Friday evening, four decked up girls made their way to dessert Mecca in Chicago - Tru!

From the minute we stepped through the inconspicuous glass doors we knew that we were in for a magical carpet ride, what we didn't know was how book or blog-worthy the ending would be. Unlike the other patrons, we were strictly there to sweeten our palette. Hence the obvious choice : a three-course tasting of the DESSERT collection.

 

While the memory of each course lingers in my taste buds, I will attempt to describe the best  dessert plate I have ever eaten (Honestly, everything else pales in comparison after that evening.)

We started with an amuse-bouche: Cucumber with a sweet-tangy texture to whet our appetite in preparation for the adventure ahead.

First course: Honey-crisp apple beignet with vanilla bean ice cream and honey madelines

Second course: Dark chocolate bar with edible flowers and cocoa nibs rolled in chicory 

accompanied with coffee ice cream in a bed of chicory

Third course: Passion fruit mousse with a layer of coconut, lime and chocolate terrain 

served with a lime and mint ice cream 

Our final course was a dessert tray :

Moist rum cake,

sabayon with a hint of lemon

in edible dark chocolate cups,

tangy lemon grass macaron,

dark chocolate mint truffle,

raspberry marshmallow and

chewy passion fruit candy.

Four complimentary candy squares completed our night in dessert heaven - Milk chocolate bar encasing liquid vanilla cream. The objective was to have a mini explosion of flavors in your mouth. Sort of like fireworks at the end of an enchanting night 

We were enamored, mesmerized, bewitched..This was the kind of love story I would live to tell my grandchildren. The best night ever!

I should also mention that the service was impeccable.Even the waitstaff moved in perfect harmony, swaying rhythmically like ballet dancers as they replaced our plates and silver-ware.

After all, who can beat having individual ottomans for your purses.  

I will carry the memory of that evening for many years to come and regale how I was enticed yet again, the morning-after by the honey soaked mini-cake with apricot filling

that made its way into our purses as we departed.

If you're reading this, and are an avid dessert lover you know what you have to do right? Go on, friend. Make a memory!  

NEAR NORTH FOOD TOUR...Aka Foodies will walk three hours for gastronomic satisfaction

Here are a few more reasons why I would be inclined to walk three hours for palatable appeasement:

The guide was so darn cute and as a bonus, he knew the best places to eat.

Ashkenaz Deli : where they had the best pastrami sandwich I had ever had the pleasure of making an acqauintance with.

Tea Gschwendner: more like Tea Haven for this beverage’s aficionados
The Spice House: an absolute must-visit. Think aromatic cloves and cardamom, wooded floors and glass jars with earthy tones. A veritable kingdom of spices from around the world.

Old Town Oil: who knew there were thirty varieties of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I have never been so happy dunking bread in an emollient of blood orange olive oil and tangerine balsamic vinegar.

The Fudge Pot: You can guess why I loved this place. I feel right at home here.
Delightful Pastries: We had two darling miniature Polish pastries from this place. Neither of which I can pronounce or names I can recall. But they were delightful and my first introduction to pastry, Poland’s way.
Bacino’s Pizzeria: We were practically dragging our feet to this last tasting. It entailed a deep dish pizza. A very large, slice of deep dish pizza. A slice I could only eat two bites of, it was so large.

Two hundred photograhs, endless hugs and silly laughters later, Sunday came around. Gigi, Cookie and I found ourselves wishing we'd had more time. We'd finally done it! The fabulous vacation with the three of us and our friend. Not wanting it to end, we made another list of places to visit and adventures to be had right after we'd collected our boarding passes for the journey home.

Perhaps this is a prequel to future trips. Perhaps.